decrement

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The Word of the Day for January 22 is: 

decrement   \DEK-ruh-munt\   noun
    *1 : a gradual decrease in quality or quantity 
     2 : the quantity lost by diminution or waste 

Example sentence:
     The participants in the sleep deprivation study experienced a decrement in 
cognitive abilities as the night wore on.

Did you know?
     Even if you've never seen "decrement" before, you might be familiar with 
"increment," a word for the action or process of increasing or for something 
that is gained or added. "Increment" arrived in English, after a rather 
circuitous route involving Anglo-French, from the Latin verb "increscere," 
meaning "to increase." So it should come as no surprise that "decrement" 
derives from the Latin verb "decrescere," meaning "to decrease." Both words can 
be traced further back to the verb "crescere," which means "to grow." Like 
"increment," "decrement" can also have the (much rarer) mathematical sense of 
"a change in the value of one or more of a set of variables," but "increment" 
is used for both positive and negative changes, and "decrement" only for 
negative ones.

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence. 






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