waning

Verb

wane (third-person singular simple present wanes, present participle waning, simple past and past participle waned)

1. (intransitive) To progressively lose its splendor, value, ardor, power, intensity etc.; to decline.
   • You saw but sorrow in its waning form.1675, John Dryden, Aureng-zebe: A Tragedy. […], London: […] T[homas] N[ewcomb] for Henry Herringman, […], published 1676, →OCLC, (please specify the page number)
2. (intransitive) For light to dim or diminish in strength.
   • The skies may hold not the splendour of sundown fast; / It wanes into twilight as dawn dies down into day.1894, Algernon Charles Swinburne, A Nympholept
3. (intransitive) For the Moon to pass through the phases of its monthly cycle where its surface is less and less visible.
   • The fall of Jack, and the subsequent fall of Jill, simply represent the vanishing of one moon-spot after another, as the moon wanes.1866, Sabine Baring-Gould, “The Man in the Moon”, in Curious Myths of the Middle Ages
4. (intransitive) Said of a time period that comes to an end.
   • Fast as autumn days toward winter: yet it seems//Here that autumn wanes not, here that woods and streams1889, Algernon Charles Swinburne, A Swimmer's Dream
5. (archaic, intransitive) To decrease physically in size, amount, numbers or surface.
   • The snow which had been for some time waning, had given way entirely under the fresh gale of the preceding night.1815 February 24, [Walter Scott], chapter XIX, in Guy Mannering; or, The Astrologer. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Longman, Hurst, Rees...
6. (obsolete, transitive) To cause to decrease.
   • In which no lustful finger can profane him,
     Nor any earth with black eclipses wane him1610, Ben Jonson, The Speeches at Prince Henry's Barriers

See all 12 meanings of wane