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Gradually decreasing; past the acme, or crisis, as a distemper. Dunglison.

certain diseases, as hydrophobia, by successive inoculations with an attenuated virus of gradually increasing strength.

tory of a play, novel, romance, or poem, comprising a complication of incidents which are gradually unfolded, sometimes by unexpected means. If the plot or intrigue must be natural, and such as springs from the subject, then the winding up of the plot must be a probable consequence of all that went before. Pope.…

rather slow. Poco a poco Etym: [It.] (Mus.) Little by little; as, poco a poco crescendo, gradually increasing in loudness.

seize as prey; to take for food by violence; to seize and devour. Shak. (c) To wear away gradually; to cause to waste or pine away; as, the trouble preyed upon his mind. Addison.

he ventricular systole, radiating from the semilunar valves over the arterial system, and gradually disappearing in the smaller branches. the pulse wave travels over the arterial system at the rate of about 29.5 feet in a second. H. N. Martin. -- To feel one's pulse. (a) To ascertain, by the sense of feeling, the condi…

An engine of torture, consisting of a large frame, upon which the body was gradually stretched until, sometimes, the joints were dislocated; -- formerly used judicially for extorting confessions from criminals or suspected persons. During the troubles of the fifteenth century, a rack was introduced into the Tower, and…

Bending or curving gradually back from the perpendicular.

To sink gradually to a lower level; to subside, as the foundation of a house, etc.

To incline gradually; to be slopping; as, the bottom shelves from the shore.

Sloping gradually; inclining; as, a shelving shore. Shak. "Shelving arches." Addison.

Sloping gradually; shelving. The shore was shelving and shallow. Shak.

Becoming shallow gradually. "A shoaling estuary." Lyell.

To fall by, or as by, the force of gravity; to descend lower and lower; to decline gradually; to subside; as, a stone sinks in water; waves rise and sink; the sun sinks in the west. I sink in deep mire. Ps. lxix. 2.

Growing gradually fainter and softer; dying away; morendo.

To become sober; -- often with down. Vance gradually sobered down. Ld. Lytton.

Becoming hard and thorny; tapering gradually to a rigid, leafless point; armed with spines. Gray.

Winding or circling round a center or pole and gradually receding from it; as, the spiral curve of a watch spring.

To get into one's power gradually and by imperceptible degrees; to take possession of by a gradual and imperceptible appropriation; -- with away. Variety of objects has a tendency to steal away the mind from its steady pursuit of any subject. I. Watts.

ded at the top, and resting on the edges of a kind of open box. They are unequal in size, gradually increasing from the smallest to the largest, and are tuned to the diatonic scale. The tones are produced by striking the pieces of wood with hard balls attached to flexible sticks.