decline vs south

decline

noun
  • Downward movement, fall. 

  • A weakening. 

  • A reduction or diminution of activity. 

  • The act of declining or refusing something. 

  • A sloping downward, e.g. of a hill or road. 

verb
  • To choose not to do something; refuse, forbear, refrain. 

  • To run through from first to last; to recite in order as though declining a noun. 

  • To cause to decrease or diminish. 

  • To bend downward; to bring down; to depress; to cause to bend, or fall. 

  • To turn or bend aside; to deviate; to stray; to withdraw. 

  • To move downwards, to fall, to drop. 

  • To inflect for case, number, gender, and the like. 

  • To reject a penalty against the opposing team, usually because the result of accepting it would benefit the non-penalized team less than the preceding play. 

  • To become weaker or worse. 

  • To recite all the different declined forms of (a word). 

south

noun
  • down or the negative direction 

  • In a church: the direction to the right-hand side of a person facing the altar. 

  • The negative or south pole of a magnet 

  • One of the four principal compass points, specifically 180° (being directed towards the South Pole); conventionally downwards on a map. 

  • The southern region or area; the inhabitants thereof. 

adv
  • Downward. 

  • Of wind, from the south. 

  • In an adverse direction or trend (go south). 

  • Toward the south; southward. 

verb
  • To turn or move toward the south; to veer toward the south. 

  • To come to the meridian; to cross the north and south line. 

adj
  • Of or pertaining to the south; southern. 

  • Designating, or situated in, the liturgical south. 

  • Pertaining to the part of a corridor used by southbound traffic. 

  • from the south. 

  • Toward the south; southward. 

How often have the words decline and south occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )