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The Collaborative International Dictionary
Decrescendo

Decrescendo \De`cres*cen"do\, a. & adv. [It.] (Mus.) With decreasing volume of sound; -- a direction to performers, either written upon the staff (abbreviated Dec., or Decresc.), or indicated by the sign.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
decrescendo

1806, from Italian decrescendo, from Latin decrescere (see decrease (v.)).

Wiktionary
decrescendo
  1. becoming quieter gradually. n. (label en music) An instruction to play gradually more softly. v

  2. (label en music) To gradually become quieter

WordNet
decrescendo
  1. adj. gradually decreasing in volume [syn: diminuendo]

  2. n. (music) a gradual decrease in loudness [syn: diminuendo]

  3. v. grow quieter; "The music decrescendoes here" [ant: crescendo]

Usage examples of "decrescendo".

There are still fireworks in the sky, subsiding shockwaves, the memory of detonations, cheap gunfire, whistling decrescendo and the smoke of burnt guys.

He broke the contact, then blared a single note, high, with a decrescendo, tenderly, to prepare the world for the melancholy that lay in store.

The whine of the lift motors lowered in a deep decrescendo as the elevator slowed.

The turning of the seasons was a longer, slower rhythm, an almost imperceptible crescendo and decrescendo of vitality and dormancy, fecundity and death.