smallen

See also: smällen

English

Etymology

From small +‎ -en.

Verb

smallen (third-person singular simple present smallens, present participle smallening, simple past and past participle smallened)

1. (transitive, intransitive) To make or become small; diminish
   • 1914, Blackwood's Magazine, volume 196, page 193:

     And Ywain looked down in his wheeling, and there was the city of Dœdala very far beneath him, and it smallened and darkened continually, so that save for the moonlight upon the towers he had soon seen it no more.

   • 2015, August Franza, The Life I Had in Mind:

     Do you feel you will be smallening yourself, Norman, if you examine your childhood?

   • 2019, Mike Rowe, The Way I Heard It, page 90:

     In fact, I did—when I wrote Roget's story. Which begs the question, was the tale really diminished—lessened, minimized, or smallened in some way—when I started to lean on that linguistic crutch?

Anagrams

• Ellmans, Mansell, Sellman