Present participle of fade; gradually losing brightness, color, strength, or clarity over time. Can refer to physical deterioration or the diminishing of abstract qualities like memory or sound.
From Old French 'fader' meaning to become weak or insipid, possibly from Latin 'fatuus' meaning foolish or insipid. The sense of losing color developed by the 14th century, extending to other forms of gradual loss.
The phenomenon of fading in human memory isn't random - we tend to retain the emotional essence of events while losing specific details, a process that actually helps us learn general patterns from experience. In photography, fading was once a major problem until archival processing techniques were developed to make images last centuries.
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