increase

Pronunciation

• IPA: verb /ɪnˈkriːs/, noun /ˈɪn.kriːs/^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English encresen,^[2][3] borrowed from Anglo-Norman encress-, a variant of Old French encreiss-, the stem of encreistre,^[2][4][5] from Latin incrēscere (“to grow, increase”),^[2][3] from in- (“in”) and crēscere (“to grow”),^[2][4][3] from Proto-Indo-European *ker- (“to grow”).^[2][3] Modern English restored the Latin in- in the 15th or 16th century,^[5][2] and the spelling increase became established in the late 1800s.^[4] The noun is from the verb.^[4][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Intransitive, “to become greater in size or number”: the mid-14th century^[2] or the 14th century in the OED,^[7] and transitive “to make greater” before 1333^[4] or the late 14th century.^[2]

Semantic evolution

“To grow in numbers, multiply”, especially by breeding, is from about 1315,^[7] and “to advance in wealth or power” from 1388.^[7] The noun, growth in size or numbers, is from about 1374^[7] or about 1380, in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales;^[4] the offspring of people or animals is from 1390,^[7] and the rising of a tide from 1555.^[7] On the increase is from 1752.^[7] From the 18th century the noun and verb were distinguished by stress, the noun on the first syllable.^[2]

Timeline

• before 1333 – to make greater.^[4]
• mid-14th century – to become greater.^[2]
• c. 1374 – noun, growth.^[7]
• 1390 – offspring.^[7]
• 1752 – on the increase.^[7]
• 18th century – stress shift in the noun.^[2]

Modern meaning

Verb

1. To become greater or larger; to grow.
2. To make greater or larger; to augment.
3. (archaic) To multiply by breeding.

Noun

1. The act of increasing; growth.
2. The amount by which something increases.
3. (archaic) Offspring; propagation.

Word family

• increasable
• increaser
• increasingly
• reincrease
• nonincrease

Related words

• crescent
• decrease
• increment
• create
• accrue
• crescendo

Usage notes

The American Heritage Dictionary compares increase with expand, enlarge, extend, augment and multiply.^[8]

References

1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (2000), 4th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
4. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin