Our story is not one of production, it’s been a story of diminishment and with all these excess balances sitting on the balance sheet, it’s hard to overcome the reduction in the average balances.

Source: https://seekingalpha.com/article/4618498-synovus-financial-corp-snv-q2-2023-earnings-call-transcript?source=feed_all_articles

They can strip down academics, and face what that diminishment leads to.

Source: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/03/06/the-end-of-the-english-major

WASHINGTON : Around 1200 BC, human civilization experienced a harrowing setback with the near-simultaneous demise or diminishment of several important empires in the Middle East and eastern Mediterranean region - an event called the Bronze Age collapse.

Source: https://www.channelnewsasia.com/business/tree-study-shows-how-drought-may-have-doomed-ancient-hittite-empire-3263986?cid=cna_flip_070214