TITLE: How to say "become smaller/lower" in one word in mathematical context?
QUESTION [5 upvotes]: We can say e.g. "You can see $2^x$ outgrowing $x^2$ as x increases in Fig. 6.18.".
How can we express the opposite?
The corresponding example: "You can see $x^2$ ... $2^x$ as x increases". What is a good single word for the gap?

REPLY [4 votes]: How about just "decreases"?
Maybe what you really want to say here is that the increases or decreases are exponential. The difference between, say, $2^3$ and $3^2$ is famously small, but the difference between $2^G$ and $G^2$, where $G$ is a googolplex, are mind-boggling, at least for puny human minds.