decrement

The term decrement stands for stepwise reduction. The decrement is the amount by which an existing digit is to be reduced.

If the decrement is 2 and the digit is 8, the result of decrementing is 6. The opposite is the increment, which increases a number by the value of the increment.

When decrementing, the initial value is decreased by the decrement in steps. This technique is used in looping programs when counting down individual program steps. Many programming languages have a decrement command.