Incrementing

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. The act of gradually increasing a quantity involves systematic additions and represents a process of growth in size or value
2. This concept entails a progressive increase in a given amount through a structured series of additions
3. The process of making a quantity larger by adding small successive amounts

Etymology: "Incrementing" is simply the -ing form of the verb "increment", which means to increase in steps. The verb grew out of the noun, and the noun reaches back to Latin "incrementum", a word meaning growth or augmentation. That Latin noun came from "incrēscere", to grow upon or grow larger, built from the prefix "in-" and the verb "crescere", to grow. English also borrowed "crescent" and "crescendo" from the same root, so a crescent moon and a rising musical volume share an ancestor with this word. The noun arrived in Middle English as "encrement", which shows the same Latin source already at work centuries before the verb appeared. The English word "increase" came from a related Latin-based path, and "increment" is in effect a close relative formed on that model, with the suffix "-ment" marking the result of an action. Over time the noun settled into the sense of a small, regular addition, and the verb followed that meaning: to add one step at a time rather than all at once.

Synonyms: increasing, growing, augmenting

Antonyms: decreasing, diminishing