All 5 Uses
recede
in
Hollow City
(Auto-generated)
- We were ten children and one bird in three small and unsteady boats, rowing with quiet intensity straight out to sea, the only safe harbor for miles receding quickly behind us, craggy and magical in the blue-gold light of dawn.†
p. 17.3receding = moving away or diminishing (become less)
- I should've been overjoyed, but I hardly felt anything, just a spreading numbness as the trembling pain of the Feeling receded.†
p. 75.5 *receded = move away or diminished (became less)
- The town receded and a farm sprang up on either side of the tree-lined road, its fields fallow and bare.†
p. 163.9
- They squirmed like amoebas under a microscope, row upon row receding into a haze of smoke.†
p. 206.2receding = moving away or diminishing (become less)
- Miss Wren ran toward them, screaming Althea's name while the ice that had spread across most of Caul's body began, very quickly, to recede.†
p. 385.1recede = to move away or diminish (become less)
Definitions:
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(1)
(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)
- (2) (meaning too rare to warrant focus)