Decrease: Knitting removes stitches, not just amounts

In everyday speech, decrease describes any reduction: lower sales, fewer calories, reduced pressure. The amount goes down, but the thing itself stays the same.

In knitting manufacture, a decrease is a mechanical action that eliminates active stitches from the work. The two main methods are pass-slip-knit (PSK), where you slip one stitch, knit the next, and pull the slipped stitch over it, and knit two together (K2tog), where two stitches become one in a single pass through the needle. Each method pulls the remaining yarn tighter and reshapes the fabric. A garment that starts with 120 stitches might decrease to 80 stitches at the armhole, then to 40 at the neck, each decrease permanently removing loops rather than simply reducing their tension.

Other fiber trades use decrease in similar ways. Crocheters decrease by skipping stitches or crocheting multiple stitches together. Lace makers and macramé workers use decrease-like techniques to create tapers and shaped sections. All of these crafts treat decrease as a structural choice, not a scaling adjustment.

The term migrated from knitting language because the action is visual and irreversible. Once you decrease, those stitches are gone; you cannot simply loosen them again. The metaphor fits the industrial sense perfectly: you are making the piece smaller by eliminating units of construction, stitch by stitch.