EBBING • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Ebbing

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/ˈɛbɪŋ/ Listen

verb

Ebb v. t. To cause to flow back. (Obs.)

Ebb v. i. (past & past part. ebbed; pres. part. ebbing)

To flow back; to return, as the water of a tide toward the ocean; opposed to flow. "That Power who bids the ocean ebb and flow."

To return or fall back from a better to a worse state; to decline; to decay; to recede. "The hours of life ebb fast."

Synonyms: To recede; retire; withdraw; decay; decrease; wane; sink; lower.

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Etymology of 'Ebbing'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Ebbing" Quotes from Famous Books

... not the prophecies of continuous advance; they were but incidental fluctuations in a historic process which knew no progress as a whole. Even the Stoics saw in history only a recurrent rise and fall in endless repetition so that all apparent change for good or evil was but the influx or the ebbing of the tide in an essentially unchanging sea. The words of Marcus Aurelius are typical: "The periodic movements of the universe are the same, up and down from age to age"; "He who has seen present things ...

— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick

... his ebbing fame went less, But when fresh laurels courted him to live: He seemed but to prevent some new success, As if above ...

— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall

... right, to left; darkness of birth, of death, and only the palpable fog between. He did not sigh for this. What irked him was the thought that while he had followed the mill-round of duty, strength had been ebbing away ...

— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... the tides, old John Lilly writes: "There is nothing thought more admirable, or commendable in the sea, than the ebbing and flowing; and shall the moone, from whom the sea taketh this virtue, be accounted fickle for encreasing and decreasing?" [336] Another writer of the sixteenth century says, "The moone is founde, by plaine experience, to beare her greatest stroke uppon the seas, likewise in all things that ...

— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley

... to preserve, that by the Enjoyment of your dear and nearest Conversation, Madam, (persu'd he to Lucretia) I may be prepar'd to endure the only greater Joys of Heaven. But O! My Words prey on my Spirits. And all the World, like a huge Ship at Anchor, turn round with the ebbing Tide.—I can no more. At these Words both the Ladies shriek'd aloud, which made him sigh, and move his Hand as well as he could toward the Door; his Attendant perceiv'd it, and told 'em he sign'd to them to quit the Room; as indeed it was necessary they should, ...

— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn

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