Etymologically
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increase

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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
  • 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