Definition of "diminuendo"

Thus, in "Flavia and Her Artists" (1905), for example, a fiction of consonance in diminuendo, the French subtext states a set of harmonies (the young American returned from France) and cacophonies (the supercilious French art critic, Roux) shedding light on the main text with its own consonances of intergenerationsl friendship, marital loyalty, artistic pleasure, and joyful lesbianism.

1988, Robert James Nelson, Willa Cather and France: In Search of the Lost Language, page 79

Harlow gazed, like Henry, out the wide corner window, enjoying the diminuendos of the light.

1998, Edward Abbey, The Fool's Progress: An Honest Novel

Jillian haad the kind of charm that wore off. Or after enough romantic diminuendos, that's what she theorized.

2018, Lionel Shriver, The Standing Chandelier