wane

noun

1. A gradual diminution in power, value, intensity etc.

   “1853, Herman Melville, "Bartleby, the Scrivener," in Billy Budd, Sailor and Other Stories, New York: Penguin, 1968; reprinted 1995 as Bartleby, →ISBN, p. 3, In the morning, one might say, his face was of a fine florid hue, but after twelve o'clock, meridian -- his dinner hour -- it blazed like a grate full of Christmas coals; and continued blazing -- but, as it were, with a gradual wane -- till six o'clock, PM, or thereabouts; after which, I saw no more of the proprietor of the face, ….”

   “1913, Michael Ott, The Catholic Encyclopedia, "Wenzel Anton Kaunitz", His influence which was on the wane during the reign of Joseph II grew still less during the reign of Leopold II (1790-2).”

2. The lunar phase during which the sun seems to illuminate less of the moon as its sunlit area becomes progressively smaller as visible from Earth.

   “Some French peasants also prefer to sow in the wane.”

   “It was very dark, for although the sky was clear the moon was now well in the wane, and would not rise till the small hours.”

3. (literary)The end of a period.

   “The day was in its prime, the day was in its wane, and still, uneasy in mind and body, she slept on.”

   “The situation of the Venetian party in the wane of the eighteenth century had become extremely critical.”

   “]”

4. A rounded corner caused by lack of wood, often showing bark.

   “2002, Peter Ross, Appraisal and Repair of Timber Structures, p. 11, Sapwood, or even bark, may appear on the corners, or may have been cut off, resulting in wane, or missing timber.”

5. (Scotland, slang)A child.
6. (Northern-England, Scotland, obsolete)A house or dwelling.

verb

1. (intransitive)To progressively lose its splendor, value, ardor, power, intensity etc.; to decline.

   “You saw but sorrow in its waning form.”

   “Land and trade ever will wax and wane together.”

   “I have sat before the dense coal fire and watched it all aglow, full of its tormented flaming life; and I have seen it wane at last, down, down, to dumbest dust.”

   “And in the cool twilight when the sea-winds wane[…]”

   “And so it had always pleased M. Stutz to expect great things from the dark young man whom he had first seen in his early twenties ; and his expectations had waxed rather than waned on hearing the faint bruit of the love of Ivor and Virginia—for Virginia, M. Stutz thought, would bring fineness to a point in a man like Ivor Marlay, […].”

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.”

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.”

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 streams”

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.”

   “Denisovans had little genetic diversity, suggesting that their small population waned further as populations of modern humans expanded.”

6. (obsolete, transitive)To cause to decrease.

   “In which no lustful finger can profane him, Nor any earth with black eclipses wane him”

   “Proud once and princely was the mansion, ere a succession of spendthrifts waned away its splendour.”