2 collocations for steepened

In fine, the use which the engineer makes of grades and curves, when the physical nature of the country and the nature and amount of the traffic expected are known, may be taken as a pretty sure index of his real professional standing, and sometimes as an index of the moral man; as when, for example, he steepens his grades to suit the contractor's ideas of mechanics,in other words, to save work.

A general improvement in nutrition and other home circumstances might tend to 'steepen' the polygon of variation, i.e. to bring more children near the normal, or it might increase the number of children with exceptional inherited cleverness who were able to reveal that fact, and so 'flatten' it; and either case might make a change desirable in the best proportion between the types of schools or even in the number of the types.

2 collocations for  steepened