WANING

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does waning mean? 

• WANING (noun)
  The noun WANING has 1 sense:

1. a gradual decrease in magnitude or extent

  Familiarity information: WANING used as a noun is very rare.

• WANING (adjective)
  The adjective WANING has 1 sense:

1. (of the Moon) pertaining to the period during which the visible surface of the moon decreases

  Familiarity information: WANING used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• WANING (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A gradual decrease in magnitude or extent

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural events

Context example:

the waxing and waning of the moon

Hypernyms ("waning" is a kind of...):

decrease; drop-off; lessening (a change downward)

Antonym:

waxing (a gradual increase in magnitude or extent)

Derivation:

wane (grow smaller)

wane (decrease in phase)

wane (become smaller)

• WANING (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

(of the Moon) pertaining to the period during which the visible surface of the moon decreases

Context example:

after full moon comes the waning moon

Antonym:

waxing ((of the moon) pertaining to the period during which the visible surface of the moon increases)

 Context examples 

Thus in the season of the waning days the might of England put forth on to the waters.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

But now his waning powers would not permit such a course.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

Yet the scene in the dining-room of the Abbey Grange was sufficiently strange to arrest his attention and to recall his waning interest.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

It was in those days that we began our lifelong friendship, a friendship which still in our waning years binds us closely as two brothers.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

When they went away together, in the waning moonlight, and I looked after them, comparing their departure in my mind with Martha's, I saw that she held his arm with both her hands, and still kept close to him.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

The new studies, led by researchers at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), provide insights into the mysterious timing of sunspot cycles, which are marked by the waxing and waning of sunspot activity on the solar surface.

('Terminators' on the sun trigger plasma tsunamis, start of new solar cycles, National Science Foundation)

Yet summer lingered, fading and fainting among her hills, deepening the purple of her valleys, spinning a shroud of haze from waning powers and sated raptures, dying with the calm content of having lived and lived well.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

This resolution of mine was not due to any lack of material, since I have notes of many hundreds of cases to which I have never alluded, nor was it caused by any waning interest on the part of my readers in the singular personality and unique methods of this remarkable man.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

She drew his head down to hers as she spoke, and there, with their cheeks together, were the two faces, the one stamped with the waning beauty of womanhood, the other with the waxing strength of man, and yet so alike in the dark eyes, the blue-black hair and the broad white brow, that I marvelled that I had never read her secret on the first days that I had seen them together.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The rest of the half-year is a jumble in my recollection of the daily strife and struggle of our lives; of the waning summer and the changing season; of the frosty mornings when we were rung out of bed, and the cold, cold smell of the dark nights when we were rung into bed again; of the evening schoolroom dimly lighted and indifferently warmed, and the morning schoolroom which was nothing but a great shivering-machine; of the alternation of boiled beef with roast beef, and boiled mutton with roast mutton; of clods of bread-and-butter, dog's-eared lesson-books, cracked slates, tear-blotted copy-books, canings, rulerings, hair-cuttings, rainy Sundays, suet-puddings, and a dirty atmosphere of ink, surrounding all.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)