diminuendo

In Mitchell’s case, the diminuendo was especially long, and his continued expectations for himself much higher.

From The New Yorker ● Apr. 20, 2015

As each wave rolls in—booming, roaring, growling, hissing—I listen to its voice: the unique contours of its rising and falling, its singular crescendo and diminuendo.

From Slate ● Feb. 24, 2015

The command of dynamics is so brilliant that a quick series of vertically rising hand claps, phrased as a diminuendo, becomes enchanting.

From New York Times ● Oct. 9, 2014

In Limonov, as a writer in search of a narrative line, Carrère struggles with this diminuendo.

From The Guardian ● Sep. 21, 2014

The gradually lowering tone of the mother's lullaby announced the sinking of the infant to slumber, and at last the diminuendo died away, and Chariton, with glistening eyes, ran to take Liana's hand.

From Titan: A Romance v. 1 (of 2) by Jean Paul Friedrich Richter

Not only so, but the accompanying orchestra faithfully upheld and completed the symphony which rose and fell with crescendos and diminuendoes more glorious as the chorus pealed louder and nearer.

From The Trail of a Sourdough Life in Alaska by May Kellogg Sullivan

And instant by instant the flood of varicolored flame that poured into its petalings down from the sapphire ovoids waxed and waned in crescendoes and diminuendoes of relucent harmonies—ecstatic, awesome.

From The Metal Monster by Abraham Merritt

Rifle-fire is as inconstant in volume as piano music; there is something of human effort to be heard in the "tap ... tap ... tap ... tap-tap-trrrrapp" of its crescendos and diminuendoes.

From "Contemptible", by "Casualty" by

His delivery, with its sentimental diminuendoes and coquettish staccatoes, was reminiscent of the music-hall style, on which it was doubtless modelled.

From The Undying Past by Hermann Sudermann

He makes them dance for his pleasure, and you hear their breath come and go, in the swell and subsiding of those marvellous crescendoes and diminuendoes which set the strings pulsating like a sea.

From Plays, Acting and Music A Book Of Theory by Arthur Symons