proliferate

proliferate

English

Etymology

Back-formation from proliferation.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /pɹəˈlɪf.əɹ.eɪt/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

Verb

proliferate (third-person singular simple present proliferates, present participle proliferating, simple past and past participle proliferated)

1. (transitive, intransitive) To increase in number or spread rapidly; to multiply.

   The flowers proliferated rapidly all spring.

   • 2006, Edwin Black, chapter 2, in Internal Combustion‎:

     But through the oligopoly, charcoal fuel proliferated throughout London's trades and industries.  By the 1200s, brewers and bakers, tilemakers, glassblowers, pottery producers, and a range of other craftsmen all became hour-to-hour consumers of charcoal.

Derived terms

• proliferative

Related terms

• proliferous
• prolific

Translations

to increase in number or spread

Bulgarian: разпространявам се (razprostranjavam se) Chinese: Mandarin: 激增 (zh) (jīzēng), 劇增／剧增 (zh) (jùzēng), 擴散／扩散 (zh) (kuòsàn), 增生 (zh) (zēngshēng), 增殖 (zh) (zēngzhí) Dutch: snel vermenigvuldigen Finnish: lisääntyä nopeasti (to increase in number), levitä nopeasti (to spread) German: sich ausbreiten, sich vermehren Maori: koke (of news), whakaranea Portuguese: proliferar (pt) Russian: размножа́ться (ru) impf (razmnožátʹsja), размно́житься (ru) pf (razmnóžitʹsja) (intransitive, to multiply), распространя́ться (ru) impf (rasprostranjátʹsja), распространи́ться (ru) pf (rasprostranítʹsja) (intransitive, to spread), распространя́ть (ru) impf (rasprostranjátʹ), распространи́ть (ru) pf (rasprostranítʹ) (transitive, to spread) Serbo-Croatian: Cyrillic: пролифери́рати Roman: proliferírati (sh) Spanish: proliferar (es)

Further reading

• proliferate in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
• proliferate in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911

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Italian

Verb

proliferate

1. inflection of proliferare:
   1. second-person plural present indicative
   2. second-person plural imperative

Participle

proliferate f pl

1. feminine plural of proliferato

Anagrams

• petrolifera