receding
noun1
The action of something that recedes.
- the great overflowings and recedings of the waters1829, Josiah Conder, The Modern Traveler, page 205:
2
A recessed part.
- The sombre shadows, cast by those huge houses of which it is composed, and the streams of faint light cutting the darkness here and there, where the entrance to some fantastic alley pierces the sable mass of building—the strange projectings, recedings, and windings […]1820, John Gibson Lockhart, Peter's Letters to His Kinsfolk, page 20: