declining reputation, worsening reputation

Question

I am trying to write a two-word phrase. The second word is "reputation." The first word is a modifier; it will signal that a reputation is getting worse. "Worsening reputation" fits this description -- but it seems clunky and unidiomatic to me. Is there a better alternative?
"Declining reputation" came to mind, but I am not sure that it's appropriate. A reputation can be in decline, but can it be declining? Perhaps it's fine; I am not sure.
"Decreasing reputation" is not appropriate here. I wouldn't write "increasing reputation" to suggest that someone's reputation is getting better (though I might consider it if I wanted to suggest that someone was becoming better-known).
"Deteriorating reputation" might make sense, but "deteriorating" is just too many syllables.

Anton · Answer

Let's start with the relevant verb:

decline = to gradually become less, worse, or lower
Cambridge Dictionary

A declining reputation is thus one that is gradually becoming less, worse or lower. It is a reputation that is in the state of decline.
I imagine some of your difficulty comes from the feeling that a reputation is as it is at the instant you think of it; that it has an instantaneous state that is not declining, increasing, changing or any other similar condition. This is akin to the issue faced by the first people (Newton, Leibnitz and others) who developed the differential calculus. They had the problem of describing the rate of change of things and laboured hard over how to do that when any instantaneous measurement only gave then one value of the thing rather than a rate of change. But the solution is that even over a tiny instant a definition of rate of change is possible.
I therefore believe that reputation may be in a state of declining at any time.

declining reputation, worsening reputation

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