Word.ws English Dictionary

dwindle

UK/ˈdwɪn.dəl/

dwindle verb: to decrease, shrink, diminish, reduce in size or intensity.

Verb

dwindle (third-person singular simple present dwindles, present participle dwindling, simple past and past participle dwindled)

  1. (intransitive) To decrease, shrink, diminish, reduce in size or intensity.
    • Their supplies began to dwindle after a week.
    • Interest in the project slowly dwindled.
  2. (figuratively, intransitive) To fall away in quality; degenerate, sink.
    • VVearie Seu'nights, nine times nine, / Shall he dvvindle, peake, and pine: […]c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount...
    • Religious Societies, though begun with excellent Intention, and by Perſons of true Piety, have dwindled into factious Clubs; […]1709, [Jonathan Swift], A Project for the Advancement of Religion, and the Reformation of Manners. […], London: […] Benj[amin] Tooke, […], →OCLC, page 44
  3. (transitive) To lessen; to bring low.
    • Our drooping days are dwindled down to nought.a. 1749 (date written), James Thomson, “Spring”, in The Seasons, London: […] A[ndrew] Millar, and sold by Thomas Cadell, […], published 1768, →OCLC
  4. To break up or disperse.
    • there were only five hundred foot and three hundred horse left with him, for the blocking of Plymouth; the rest were dwindled away1702–1704, Edward [Hyde, 1st] Earl of Clarendon, (please specify |book=I to XVI), in The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England, Begun in the Year 1641. […], Oxford, Oxfordshire: Printed...

dwindle meaning in Tamil, Bengali, Malayalam and Kannada

dwindle in Tamil

குறைந்து சிறிதாகிப் போ, சுருங்கு, வீணாகு, விரையம் செய், சுருக்கு, சிறிதாக்கு

dwindle in Bengali

কমে যাওয়া, সংকুচিত হওয়া, হ্রাস পাওয়া, মাত্রা, তীব্রতায় কমে যাওয়া, গুণমানে পতন

dwindle in Malayalam

മെലിയുക, ക്ഷീണിക്കുക, ചുരുങ്ങുക

dwindle in Kannada

ಕುಗ್ಗು, ಕಿರಿದಾಗು, ಕಡಿಮೆಯಾಗು, ಕಡಮೆಯಾಗು, ಕ್ಷೀಣಿಸು, ಸಣ್ಣದಾಗು
More languagesFewer languages
dwindle in Vietnamese
suy yếu, tiêu giảm

Examples of dwindle in a sentence

  • The flattery of his friends began to dwindle into simple approbation.1766, [Oliver Goldsmith], chapter III, in The Vicar of Wakefield: […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), Salisbury, Wiltshire: […]...
  • The larger the empire, the more dwindles the mind of the citizen.1919, Boris Sidis, The Source and Aim of Human Progress:
  • Such bulbs tend to dwindle away instead of fattening up and producing offsets.2014 September 26, Charles Quest-Ritson, “The Dutch garden where tulip bulbs live forever: Hortus Bulborum, a volunteer-run Dutch garden...

All 38 example sentences with dwindle

Synonyms of dwindle

All synonyms of dwindle

Forms of dwindle

third-person singular presentdwindles
present participledwindling
past participledwindled
pastdwindled

Past tense of dwindle: dwindled

Origin of dwindle

Frequentative form of dwine, from Middle English dwynen, from Old English dwīnan (“to waste away”), from Proto-West Germanic *dwīnan, from Proto-Germanic *dwīnaną. It is equivalent to dwine + -le, akin to Old Norse dvena, dvína, Dutch verdwijnen (“to disappear, dwindle”).

Words formed from dwindle

Words that rhyme with dwindle

Questions about dwindle

What does dwindle mean?
Dwindle means to decrease, shrink, diminish, reduce in size or intensity.
What is dwindle in Tamil?
Dwindle in Tamil is குறைந்து சிறிதாகிப் போ, சுருங்கு, வீணாகு. See Dwindle meaning in Tamil.
How do you use dwindle in a sentence?
The flattery of his friends began to dwindle into simple approbation.
What part of speech is dwindle?
Dwindle is a verb.
How do you pronounce dwindle?
Dwindle is pronounced /ˈdwɪn.dəl/ (UK).
What is the past tense of dwindle?
The past tense of dwindle is dwindled.

Words near dwindle in the dictionary

  1. DWIM
  2. dwimmer
  3. dwimmercraft
  4. dwimmers
  5. dwimmery
  6. dwindle
  7. dwindled
  8. dwindlement
  9. dwindler
  10. dwindlers
  11. dwindles

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: dwindle (page history and authors); dwindle (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); dwindle (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); dwindle (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); dwindle (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-dwindle.ogg, en-au-dwindle.ogg.

Cite this entry: “dwindle.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dwindle. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.