incline

/ɪnˈklaɪn/

incline verb: to bend or move (something) out of a given plane or direction, often the horizontal or vertical.

Verb

incline (third-person singular simple present inclines, present participle inclining, simple past and past participle inclined)

(transitive) To bend or move (something) out of a given plane or direction, often the horizontal or vertical.
- He had to incline his body against the gusts to avoid being blown down in the storm.
- The people following the coffin inclined their heads in grief.
(intransitive) To slope.
- Over the centuries the wind made the walls of the farmhouse incline.
(intransitive, chiefly passive voice) To tend to do or believe something, or move or be moved in a certain direction, away from a point of view, attitude, etc.
- He inclines to believe anything he reads in the newspapers.
- I'm inclined to give up smoking after hearing of the risks to my health.
Synonyms:

dispose

Noun

incline (plural inclines)

A slope.
- To reach the building, we had to climb a steep incline.
- The incline can be altered to any grade so as to suit the weight of the door or gate to which the butt is attached.1847, editorial staff, “Improved Adjustable Incline Door and Gate Butt”, in Scientific American, series 1, Volume 3, Issue 9, page 68
A portal of a subway tunnel.
- the Pleasant Street Incline

incline meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Telugu

incline in Tamil

to incline, hang down: சாய் cāy
to incline, bend down, as grain in the field: தலைவணங்கு talaivaṇaṅku

incline in Urdu

ڈھال, ڈھلکنا, جھکنا, مڑنا, ڈھلکانا, جھکانا

incline in Bengali

ঝোঁকা, হেলানো, প্ররোচিত করা

incline in Telugu

bend (something) out of a given plane or direction: వాలుట vāluṭa
slope: ఏటవాలు ēṭavālu
to tend to do or believe something: అంగీకరించుట aṅgīkariñcuṭa

More languagesFewer languages

incline in Malayalam: ചരിവ് carivŭ
incline in Kannada: ಮಲಗು malagu
incline in Indonesian: miring

Examples of incline in a sentence

The workers stopped the rig on an incline and scotched the wheels.
The walks in this area have a gentle incline.
"I am glad to know you preserve that old signal box at the top of the incline.

All 36 example sentences with incline

Synonyms of incline

dispose

Forms of incline

Verb
third-person singular present	inclines
present participle	inclining
past participle	inclined
past	inclined
alternative form (obsolete)	encline
Noun
plural	inclines

Past tense of incline: inclined

Origin of incline

From Middle English enclinen, from Old French encliner (modern incliner), from Latin inclīnō (“incline, tilt”), from in- + clīnō (compare -cline), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱley- (English lean).

Words formed from incline

Phrases with incline

Words that rhyme with incline

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about incline

What does incline mean?: Incline means to bend or move (something) out of a given plane or direction, often the horizontal or vertical.
What is incline in Tamil?: Incline in Tamil is சாய் (cāy), தலைவணங்கு (talaivaṇaṅku). See Incline meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is incline?: Incline can be a verb or a noun.
How do you pronounce incline?: Incline is pronounced /ɪnˈklaɪn/.
What is the past tense of incline?: The past tense of incline is inclined.

Words near incline in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: incline (page history and authors); சாய் (Tamil) (page history and authors); incline (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); Incline (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ചരിവ് (Malayalam) (page history and authors); ಮಲಗು (Kannada) (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.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-incline.ogg, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-incline (noun).wav.

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