Other forms: decreased, decreasing, decreases
To decrease is to become smaller in number or amount. Decrease sharply, a decrease in numbers, decrease the dose.
It is the formal counterpart of fall or drop and belongs to reports and measurements. It works both ways — numbers decrease by themselves, and a person decreases a dose. The noun shifts its stress to the first syllable. Note the difference from reduce, which needs somebody doing it: prices can decrease on their own, and a shop reduces them.
1verbdecreaseTo become smaller in number or amount.
“The number of pupils in the village school has decreased as families move to the city.”
2nounreductionSuch a reduction.
“There has been a sharp decrease in the number of people who smoke.”
decrease is a becoming smaller.
Latin decrescere is de- plus crescere, to grow. Crescent, increase and crescendo come from the same growing, so a decrease is a growing downward.
Proto-Indo-European
*ḱer- (grow)
Latin
decrescere
Old French
descreistre
Middle English
decresen
English, today
decrease
From Middle English decresen, alteration of discresen, from Anglo-Norman -, Old French descreistre (French: décroître), from Latin decrescere.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in Numbers & Measurement