Proliferating

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. The action of rapidly increasing or multiplying can describe both the rapid growth of cells and the swift generation of numerous items or ideas within a certain environment
2. An occurrence where things spread or grow quickly, encompassing both cellular multiplication and the fast production of various entities
3. The process in which something increases or spreads rapidly can refer to both the multiplication of biological cells as well as the quick expansion of ideas or products in a particular context

Etymology: "Proliferating" is the present participle of "proliferate," which English formed by working backwards from a longer noun. The noun "proliferation" came first, and "proliferate" was carved out of it as a back-formation, a verb built by stripping an ending from a word that already existed. The noun itself was borrowed from French "prolifération," and it rests on the Latin root "proles," meaning offspring or progeny, the same root that gives us "prolific." The root tells the story of the word's core image. To proliferate is, quite literally, to produce offspring in rapid succession, so the idea of many things multiplying quickly grew out of a picture of living things reproducing. Once the verb existed, its sense stayed close to that biological image while broadening to cover anything that spreads or multiplies fast.

Synonyms: growing, increasing, multiplying, expanding, spreading

Antonyms: decreasing, diminishing, contracting, reducing, lessening