Word.ws English Dictionary

dwindling

dwindling is the present participle and gerund of dwindle.

Meaning of dwindle

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.
  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...
  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...

Adjective

dwindling (comparative more dwindling, superlative most dwindling)

  1. declining; growing less
    • There is dwindling support for New Labour.
    • Yes, I am aware of the dwindling suppy situation. The supplies meant for the Resistance had to be diverted at the last moment, so we never received them.2017, BioWare, Mass Effect: Andromeda (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →OCLC, PC, scene: Reply Message: "Low Supplies?"

Noun

dwindling (plural dwindlings)

  1. A gradual reduction to nothing.

Forms of dwindling

Adjective
comparativemore dwindling
superlativemost dwindling
Noun
pluraldwindlings

Words formed from dwindling

Questions about dwindling

What does dwindling mean?
Dwindling means declining; growing less.
What is dwindling the present participle and gerund of?
Dwindling is the present participle and gerund of dwindle.
What part of speech is dwindling?
Dwindling can be an adjective or a noun.

Words near dwindling in the dictionary

  1. dwindlement
  2. dwindler
  3. dwindlers
  4. dwindles
  5. dwindleth
  6. dwindling
  7. dwindlingly
  8. dwindlings
  9. dwine
  10. dwined
  11. Dwinell

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: dwindling (page history and authors); dwindle (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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Cite this entry: “dwindling.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dwindling. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.