Definition of "wane" []

• To decrease gradually in size, amount, intensity, or degree; decline. (verb-intransitive)
• To exhibit a decreasing illuminated area from full moon to new moon. (verb-intransitive)
• To approach an end. (verb-intransitive)
• The act or process of gradually declining or diminishing. (noun)
• A time or phase of gradual decrease. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Sweaty semi-naked yobs with southern cross tatts, flag capes and gang mentality: bigger prob, but hopefully on the wane from a couple of years ago."
• "Almost as unsettling as Paul Kennedy's thesis that American power is on the wane is his failure to point out that the Keynesian spending policies and socialist priorities of the "rather wonderful, charismatic and highly intelligent" fellow who just became President will almost certainly hasten any decline."
• "On the wane are the heavy borrowing and complex securities that financiers embraced in recent years."