increment

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin incrēmentum (“growth, increase, means of growth”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} from the stem of incrēscō (“to grow in or upon, increase”)^[2][3][5][6] with the suffix -mentum.^[2][4][7] The verb is formed from in- (“in”) and crēscō (“to grow”),^[5][6][3] which goes back to Proto-Indo-European *ker- (“to grow”).^[6][3] French incrément is later, from the 18th century.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Something that helps a plant to grow, a support for it: about 1420, in Palladius on Husbondrie.^[2] The Middle English Dictionary cites the same poem for growth in plants and for the waxing of the moon, dating it tentatively about 1440.^[8] The general sense, the action of increasing, follows about 1425.^[2] Barnhart gives about 1425 and Etymonline the mid-15th century for the first record of the word.^[4][6]

Semantic evolution

Middle English already had a range of senses close to the Latin one: the growth of plants, the waxing of the moon, an addition or offspring, a profit and an improvement.^[8] The use for the moon survives in heraldry, recorded from 1610.^[2][9] The Latin rhetorical term, for moving from weaker to stronger expressions towards a climax, entered English by 1753.^[2] Johnson (1755) listed the act of growing greater, increase, and produce, this last with John Philips's line on orchard roots drinking "large increment".^[10] The sense "the amount of increase, an addition or profit" is recorded from 1631,^[2] and narrower uses followed: the small amount by which a variable changes in mathematics and physics, in 1721,^[2] then the growth in wood of a tree or stand, in 1889.^[2] Modern dictionaries add the sense of one of a series of regular additions,^[3][11][12] and Weekley singles out the phrase unearned increment, from J. S. Mill.^[13] A verb appeared in the mid-19th century.^[9]

Timeline

• c. 1420 – something that promotes the growth of a plant.^[2]
• c. 1425 – the action or process of increasing.^[2] Etymonline dates this to the mid-15th century.^[6]
• 1593 – produce (obsolete).^[2]
• 1609 – advancement in prosperity (obsolete or archaic by 1858).^[2]
• 1610 – in heraldry, the waxing of the moon.^[2]
• 1631 – an amount of increase; an addition, a profit.^[2][6]
• 1721 – in mathematics and physics, a small change in a variable.^[2]
• 1753 – in rhetoric, an advance from weaker to stronger expressions.^[2]
• mid-19th century – verb, to increase by increments.^[9]
• 1889 – in forestry, the increase in wood produced by a tree or stand.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. The process of increasing in size, number or value; growth.^[3][12][2]
2. Something added or gained; an addition or profit.^[3][12][2]
3. One of a series of regular additions, as to a salary: Staff on this scale receive a yearly increment.^[3][11][12]
4. A slight, barely noticeable increase.^[3][12]
5. (mathematics) A small positive or negative change in a variable or function.^[11][3][9]
6. (forestry) The increase in the wood produced by a tree or group of trees over a period, or its value.^[2][9][12]
7. (rhetoric) An advance from weaker to stronger expressions, building towards a climax.^[2][9]
8. (heraldry) The waxing of the moon.^[2][9]
9. (obsolete, c. 1420–1708) Something that promotes the growth of a plant.^[2][9][8]

Verb

1. To increase by an increment or increments.^[9][1]

Word family

• incremental
• incrementally
• incrementalism
• unearned increment

Related words

• increase
• decrement
• crescent
• increscent

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b c Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
6. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
8. ^ a b c Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
9. ^ a b c d e f g h i Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
11. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
12. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
13. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray