Decrease

dɪˈkriːs

verb

to become or make something smaller in size, amount, intensity, or degree.

The word 'decrease' is commonly used in discussing changes in quantity or intensity. It is the opposite of 'increase', representing the action of making something smaller or diminishing its size or amount.

Never again shall there be any such league of Elves and Men; for Men multiply and the Firstborn decrease, and the two kindreds are estranged.

J. R. R. Tolkien

The Fellowship of the Ring

It’s a perfectIy natural thing, and, in fact, ought to decrease suspicion.

Asimov, Isaac

Foundation 3 - Second Foundation

The way was short, for Lamia’s eagerness Made, by a spell, the triple league decrease To a few paces; not at all surmised By blinded Lycius, so in her comprised: They pass’d the city gates, he knew not how, So noiseless, and he never thought to know.

John Keats

Poetry

Strange as may be the historical account of how some king or emperor, having quarreled with another, collects an army, fights his enemy’s army, gains a victory by killing three, five, or ten thousand men, and subjugates a kingdom and an entire nation of several millions, all the facts of history (as far as we know it) confirm the truth of the statement that the greater or lesser success of one army against another is the cause, or at least an essential indication, of an increase or decrease in the strength of the nation—even though it is unintelligible why the defeat of an army—a hundredth part of a nation—should oblige that whole nation to submit.

Leo Tolstoy

War and Peace

The badly employed are those which, notwithstanding they may be few in the commencement, multiply with time rather than decrease.

Niccolò Machiavelli

The Prince

If no one sponsors me, my odds of staying alive decrease to almost zero.

Suzanne Collins

Hunger Games 1 - The Hunger Games

Because attraction between agents and reagents at all instants varied, with inverse proportion of increase and decrease, with incessant circular extension and radial reentrance.

James Joyce

Ulysses

If he be like to die, he had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.” Scrooge hung his head to hear his own words quoted by the Spirit, and was overcome with penitence and grief.

Charles Dickens

A Christmas Carol

But this is a false view; we forget that each species, even where it most abounds, is constantly suffering enormous destruction at some period of its life, from enemies or from competitors for the same place and food; and if these enemies or competitors be in the least degree favoured by any slight change of climate, they will increase in numbers; and as each area is already fully stocked with inhabitants, the other species must decrease.

Charles Darwin

The Origin of Species

Still without looking up, Taraza said: “Do you know that when you compare the millennia preceding the Tyrant with those after his death, the decrease in major conflicts is phenomenal.

Frank Herbert

Heretics of Dune

The declension of industry, the decrease of employment for the poor, the diminution of the annual produce of the land and labour of the country, have generally been the effects of such taxes.

Adam Smith

The Wealth of Nations