thin out

verb

1. To make sparse; to remove some of a group of newly-planted plants in order to allow the remaining ones to grow unimpeded.
2. To become sparse.

   “And later on, when the crowd thinned out / I was just about to do the same / She was standing there in back of my chair / Said to me, "Don't I know your name?"”

   ““Abandon Starbucks!” screamed a member of the staff, and his colleagues immediately stopped making coffees or bagging muffins and ran for their lives “It seems to be thinning out a little, ” announced Mr. Stink”