ebb
EBverbMeaning to flow back out, like the tide; to fade away
Memory hook EBB: the sea slides BACK, back, back. The water slides back out to sea, and Sami finds starfish and shells left behind on the wet sand. The tide ebbs.
As the tide ebbed, the children hunted for crabs in the pools left behind.
In context Her anger ebbed slowly as she listened to her brother’s apology, and by the end she was laughing.
Similar recede, flow back, fade, lessen
Opposite flow, rise, surge
From Old English ebba, “low tide.”