All 4 Uses of
recede
in
Catch-22
- He broke out the bottles of bourbon he had managed to buy on his four-day weekly circuits with the courier plane and laughed, sang, shuffled and shouted in a festival of inebriated ecstasy until he could no longer keep awake and receded peacefully into slumber.†
Chpt 6
- He was disappointed as he heard the peremptory crunch of Corporal Whitcomb's footsteps recede into silence.†
Chpt 20 *
- Grasping for support at anything he could reach, Yossarian limped along after him into the corridor and down the adjacent ward to a bed containing a harried young man with pimples and a receding chin.†
Chpt 26
- Their footsteps receded, leaving the circle of sandbags empty and silent in the crisp and windless moonlight.†
Chpt 34
Definition:
-
(recede) to move away or diminish (become less)The exact meaning of recede depends upon its context. For example:
- "We can't move back in until the floodwaters recede." -- diminish and move away
- "Her fear receded." -- diminished
- "The waves first advance and then recede." -- move away
- "The news story receded into the background as it was replaced by new stories." -- received diminished attention
- "a receding hairline" -- diminished hair (each year the line where hair stops growing is higher on the forehead)
- "She has a receding chin." -- sloping back (as contrasted to sticking out)