What does dwindle mean?
Word: Dwindle
Part of Speech: Verb
Meaning: Dwindle means to become gradually smaller, fewer or weaker until very little is left.
Synonyms: shrink, diminish, lessen
Antonyms: grow, increase, expand
Word origin: Formed from the old Scots and dialect verb dwine, meaning to fade away.
How do you spell dwindle?
Syllables: dwin - dle
Tricky part: The ending is where marks are lost. It is said with a soft l sound, so students write what they hear and put the vowel in the wrong place.
Watch out for: dwindel, dwindal
Memory tip: Watch a candle burn lower and lower. Candle and dwindle end in exactly the same three letters.
Dwindle in a sentence
Example 1: As the summer went on, the water in the village pond began to dwindle.
Example 2: Interest in the old board game dwindled once the new one arrived.
Example 3: By evening the queue at the ticket counter had dwindled, and only a few people remained.
Fun Fact
Shakespeare is among the earliest writers known to have used dwindle: in Henry IV, Part 1, the comic knight Falstaff asks of himself, Do I not dwindle?
Practise the CREST Way
Spell Spies
Choose the pair which has a spelling error:
a) dwendle : lessen
b) halt : stop
c) gather : collect
d) soar : climb
Show answer
a) dwendle : lessen. The error is the e: this verb has the short i sound of pin.
Jumble Tumble
Choose the correct sequence of the jumbled letters to form a meaningful word:
nelwdid 1234567
a) 5461732
b) 5431672
c) 7561432
d) 5631742
Show answer
a) 5461732. Read through in this order, the jumbled letters give dwindle.
Word Puzzle
Match the words with their opposites:
1. dwindle 2. frugal 3. timid a. wasteful b. multiply c. bold
a) 1-c, 2-a, 3-b
b) 1-b, 2-a, 3-c
c) 1-a, 2-c, 3-b
d) 1-b, 2-c, 3-a
Show answer
b) 1-b, 2-a, 3-c. Numbers that dwindle fall and numbers that multiply rise; a frugal shopper is no waster, and a timid child is far from bold.
Spell Probe
One word in the sentence is misspelt. Choose the meaning of that word:
Our pile of firewood began to dwinddle long before the monsoon ended, so Baba chopped some more.
a) wood that is cut for burning
b) the season of heavy rain in South Asia
c) to cut something into pieces with quick strokes
d) to go on getting less as time passes
Show answer
d) to go on getting less as time passes. Dwinddle has one d too many, and the word describes a stock that keeps going down.
Multiple Choice Questions
1. Visitors to a small museum have started to dwindle. What should its manager most sensibly do?
a) print many more tickets for next month
b) add extra guards at the main entrance
c) open a second ticket counter at once
d) advertise new exhibits to attract people
Show answer
d) advertise new exhibits to attract people
2. Complete the sentence: Our savings slowly dwindled ___ nothing.
a) to
b) by
c) at
d) on
Show answer
a) to
