Find the word definition

Crossword clues for receding

The Collaborative International Dictionary
Receding

Recede \Re*cede"\ (r[-e]*s[=e]d"), v. i. [imp. & p. p. Receded; p. pr. & vb. n. Receding.] [L. recedere, recessum; pref. re- re- + cedere to go, to go along: cf. F. rec['e]der. See Cede.]

  1. To move back; to retreat; to withdraw.

    Like the hollow roar Of tides receding from the insulted shore.
    --Dryden.

    All bodies moved circularly endeavor to recede from the center.
    --Bentley.

  2. To withdraw a claim or pretension; to desist; to relinquish what had been proposed or asserted; as, to recede from a demand or proposition.

    Syn: To retire; retreat; return; retrograde; withdraw; desist.

Wiktionary
receding

n. The action of something that recedes. vb. (present participle of recede English)

WordNet
receding
  1. adj. moving toward a position farther from the front; "the receding glaciers of the last ice age"; "retiring fogs revealed the rocky coastline" [syn: retiring]

  2. (of a hairline e.g.) moving slowly back [syn: receding(a)]

  3. n. a slow or gradual disappearance [syn: fadeout]

  4. the act of becoming more distant [syn: recession]

Usage examples of "receding".

Placido Geist sat his horse in the flat morning sunlight, the tableland receding to an infinite weary distance even as the horizon appeared to draw closer.

He was receding obliquely with a curious hurrying gait, with occasional violent jerks forward.

And the list does go on, like a chant of curses, through the morose mind of the desert journeyer, as he endlessly trudges from one featureless horizon across a featureless flat surface toward the featureless skyline ever receding ahead of him.

Approaching some of the strange shapes that had been revealed in the flicker of the lights, the shapes had gone away, receding and flattening into the kevel floor.

Father Clifton was younger than I, short -- but not as short as Dem Ria or Dem Loa or her race -- and pudgy, with thinning, sandy hair receding from his friendly, flushed face.

Here, still underground, the ancient Memorabilia and the latter-day Commentaries awaited a destiny which had, perhaps, already come and was swiftly receding.

The various races had made war upon one another for ages, and the three higher types had easily bested the green savages of the water places of the world, but now that the receding seas necessitated constant abandonment of their fortified cities and forced upon them a more or less nomadic life in which they became separated into smaller communities they soon fell prey to the fierce hordes of green men.

She was gazing inquisitively after the receding vehicle, holding Sylva fast behind her.

He had coarse features, a blunt nose, a convex and receding brow, tumid and protruded lips.

Now Calshot is passed, now receding from view, Once more, happy Vectis, a long, last adieu.

I felt him turning and wriggling about as he looked back at the terrible receding city, ahead at the cave-riddled, cube-barnacled peaks, sidewise at the bleak sea of snowy, rampart-strewn foothills, and upward at the seething, grotesquely clouded sky.

A hobgoblin in the image of Punch Costello, hipshot, crookbacked, hydrocephalic, prognathic with receding forehead and Ally Sloper nose, tumbles in somersaults through the gathering darkness.

When Longo was comfortably by their position, she cast an overtly obscene gesture at his receding form, much to the surprise and poorly concealed delight of Et Silmarn.

He was getting into his Citroen when Marler drove to his left round a wall through receding water.

He was grateful when a storm flowed down Nuuanu valley, a gray mist, and washed the dust from him in a five-minute torrent before receding once again to wreath the Pali peaks.