Word.ws English Dictionary

tapering off

tapering off is the present participle and gerund of taper off.

Meaning of taper off

Verb

taper off (third-person singular simple present tapers off, present participle tapering off, simple past and past participle tapered off)

  1. (idiomatic) To diminish or lessen gradually; to become or make smaller, slower, quieter, etc.
    • Months after they printed the article, the number of angry letters finally started to taper off.
  2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see taper, off.
    • The glass tapers off at the top.

Questions about tapering off

What is tapering off the present participle and gerund of?
Tapering off is the present participle and gerund of taper off.

Words near tapering off in the dictionary

  1. tapered
  2. tapered off
  3. taperer
  4. taperers
  5. tapering
  6. tapering off
  7. taperingly
  8. taperings
  9. taperless
  10. taperlike
  11. taperly

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: tapering off (page history and authors); taper off (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: “tapering off.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/tapering_off. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.