Standard Lemma guide

diminishment

noun · 1 senses · updated from the 2026-07-25 local source snapshot

Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.

Sound

Pronunciation

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  • CMU ARPABET: D IH0 M IH1 N IH0 SH M AH0 N T Digits mark lexical stress: 1 primary, 2 secondary, 0 unstressed.

1

noun

Meaning 1

The act of diminishing; reducing in size, quantity, or quality.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Usage: countable, uncountable

Examples

  • 1902, G. K. Chesterton, “The Characteristics of Robert Louis Stevenson” in G. K. Chesterton and William Robertson Nicoll, Robert Louis Stevenson, London: Hodder and Stoughton, p. 9, All great men possess in themselves the qualities which will certainly lay them open to censure and diminishment; but these inevitable deficiencies in the greatness of great men vary in the widest degree of variety.
  • 1929, William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury, New York: Vintage, 1946, Appendix, “Quentin,” p. 424, [...] this was Jason’s rage, the red unbearable fury which on that night and at intervals recurring with little or no diminishment for the next five years, made him seriously believe would at some unwarned instant destroy him [...]

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: decline, diminution, lessening, reduction

Antonyms: none provided

History

Etymology

Etymology tree English diminish Proto-Indo-European *-mn̥ Proto-Indo-European *-mn̥tom Proto-Italic *-mentom Latin -mentum Old French -mentbor. Middle English -ment English -ment English diminishment From diminish + -ment.