sloping downward

“When telling the story of my illness,” he observes, “I try not to speak about depression. … A depression is a concavity, a sloping downward and a return. Suicide, in my experience, is not that. I believe that suicide is a natural history, a disease process, not an act or a choice, a decision or a wish.”

The authors trace two diverging trend lines: one upward-sloping, for people, and one sloping downward, for everything else.

A depression is a furrow, a valley, a sloping downward, and a return.

His back is purplish-brown in the dim light, sloping downward from the gentle hump of his shoulders.

After all, sales at Victoria’s Secret — a company known for its sexy ads and lingerie-filled fashion shows — have been sloping downward for months.