advance
Verbadvances, advancing, advanced
Noun pluraladvances
Formsadvances, advancing, advanced
Pluraladvances
- 1Of a person or team, to make progress and move up, as in a career, studies, a competition, or some other field.
Employees who show initiative often advance within the company.
Her careful research allowed her to advance rapidly in the field.
UsageUsually advance in a career or field, and advance to a stage or level: advance to the finals.
Similarprogress, rise, succeed, prosper
Oppositestagnate
- 2Coming, given, or done ahead of time, before an event or before it is required.
The team received advance notice of the schedule change.
Buying advance tickets saved them a long wait at the door.
UsageUsed before a noun (advance tickets); after a verb say in advance (pay in advance). Don't confuse it with advanced, meaning high-level.
- 3
- 4A forward movement, or an improvement or step toward something better.
The discovery marked a major advance in cancer research.
Recent advances in computing have transformed daily life.
UsageName the field with in: an advance in medicine; the plural advances in often means a series of breakthroughs.
Similardevelopment, improvement, breakthrough, step, advancement
Oppositesetback, retreat, regression
- 5To move forward in space, or to come nearer to something.
The crowd advanced slowly toward the stage.
Enemy troops advance whenever the fog hides their movement.
UsageOften advance toward or on a place; advance on usually means moving in to attack: troops advanced on the capital.
- 6To put forward an idea, argument, or proposal for consideration.
She advanced a bold theory to explain the missing data.
Critics advance the view that the policy will eventually fail.
UsageTakes an idea as object: advance a theory, a view, an argument; it has been advanced that reports a claim without owning it.
Similarpropose, suggest, present, offer, posit
Note
Alexander Pope's An Essay on Criticism (1711) mocks those who never advance a judgment of their own. Oliver Onions writes "Ghosts, it is advanced, either do not exist at all…" to report a position without owning it, a useful move for setting out an argument before weighing in.
- 7A sum of money or credit given as a loan or paid before it is due.
The author received a generous advance before finishing the book.
Cash advances on credit cards often carry high fees.
UsageAn advance on money you will be paid: an advance on your salary; a cash advance can be borrowed using a credit card.
Similarloan, prepayment
- 8Of time, a process, or a piece of work, to go on toward a later stage or come closer to being finished.
As the talks advance toward a final agreement, both sides have grown more hopeful.
As the night advanced, the music grew louder and the crowd began to thin.
- 9An opening approach or overture toward someone, now especially an unwelcome or sexual one.
He made a clumsy advance that she politely declined.
The manager's repeated advances led to a complaint.
UsageUsually make advances (to or toward someone); people reject, ignore or rebuff them; unwanted advances is a common phrase.
Similarapproach, overture, pass, proposition
Note
The older, neutral overture appears in an essay by Jonathan Swift, where a prince, refused by the Church of England, makes 'the like advances' to the dissenters. In twentieth-century fiction the word often leans toward courtship. Edgar Rice Burroughs's narrator 'tried to make advances to the girl,' and Tom Ronan's Rosamund answers a man's with a slap.
- 10To make something or someone move forward, especially by pushing or driving it on forcefully or with determination.
Like a bulldozer steadily shoving a mound of earth ahead of its blade.
Engineers slowly advance the drill through layers of solid rock.
She advanced the chess piece two squares to threaten the king.
Oppositewithdraw
Note
In Milton's Paradise Lost (1667), a speaker challenges an 'execrable shape' that dares 'advance / Thy miscreated front athwart my way,' thrusting its face forward as a threat. That menace shows the forceful edge this transitive use can still carry.
- 11Positioned or sent forward, ahead of the main group.
The advance guard secured the bridge before dawn.
An advance unit moved ahead to scout the valley.
Oppositerear
Note
A spatial adjective, most at home in military planning: scouts look for a site for an advance base, and an advance guard secures ground ahead of the main body. Where the 'early' adjective is about arriving first in time, this one is about standing first in space. In military use, it marks a unit sent forward of the main force.
Less common meanings
- 12Of a person or organization, to hand over money or something else of value early, as a loan or before it is owed or the work for it is done.
The firm advanced the contractor part of the payment up front.
Investors will advance capital only when the plan looks sound.
UsageLike lend, it takes two objects: advance someone money, or advance money to someone.
Note
In Trollope's Phineas Finn (1869), Phineas had meant 'to ask you to advance me a hundred pounds.' Institutions use it too: in James William Gilbart's The Principles and Practice of Banking, a bank advances £120,000 to a mining company. What changes hands is called an advance of money.
- 13To raise someone to a higher rank, office, or position; to promote.
The board voted to advance him to senior partner.
He was advanced to the rank of sergeant after his second tour overseas.
UsageAdvance someone to a rank or post (advanced to sergeant); promote is the more everyday word.
Similarpromote, elevate, raise
Note
Here someone else does the raising: a king or a board lifts a person to a higher place. The King James Bible of 1611 sets the word beside its near-twin: 'did king Ahasuerus promote Haman … and advanced him.' William H. Prescott, in 1837, has monarchs advancing their retainers to a level with the old peers. When people climb by their own efforts, the verb drops its object and becomes getting ahead in a career.
Checked 6 Nov 2026 · 4 facts
- The King James Bible was published in 1611. en.wikipedia.org
- The text reads 'did king Ahasuerus promote Haman … and advanced him'; 'did promote Haman' silently removes the intervening subject. en.wikisource.org
- Prescott's relevant work was first published in 1837. en.wikipedia.org
- Prescott describes monarchs advancing their retainers to equality with ancient peers. gutenberg.org
- 14To move an event or date to an earlier time, or to make something happen sooner.
Organizers advanced the deadline to give the judges more time.
We may advance the wedding date to early spring.
UsageIt means earlier, not later: advance the exam to Monday; move up says the same and is harder to misread.
Oppositepostpone, delay, defer
Note
The shift runs earlier, not later: to advance a date is to pull it closer to now. Walter Scott's The Monastery (1820) pairs the verb with its opposite: 'either to advance or retard the hour of refection.' That pairing is the easiest way to keep the direction straight.
- 15Of a price, value, or rate: to increase, climbing to a higher level.
Bank stocks advanced sharply in early trading on Tuesday.
Analysts expect mortgage rates to advance again before spring.
Similarrise, climb, gain, increase
Note
The intransitive partner of raising a price: here the price does the moving, and nobody is named as pushing it up. It belongs to the language of markets and financial news, where shares, stocks and indexes advance by a figure (advanced 2 percent) or to a level. A rate that advances has gone up; a lender who advances a rate has put it up.
- 16An increase added to a price; a rise in price or value.
The latest advance in property values priced out first-time buyers.
Shareholders cheered the quarterly advance in the company's share price.
Oppositefall, decline, drop, decrease
Note
Commercial English measures this rise against a starting figure, using on: an advance on the prime cost of goods. This is the noun that goes with raising a price. Don't confuse it with money paid early: an advance on cost is added to what a buyer pays, while a loaned advance is handed over before it is due.
- 17To raise a price, rate, or amount to a higher figure.
The supplier plans to advance its prices by five percent in January.
Citing higher fuel costs, the airline plans to advance its fares on most routes this summer.
- 18To make a higher bid during an auction.
When no one in the room would advance on the phone bidder's offer, the auctioneer brought down the hammer.
The auctioneer asked whether anyone would advance on five thousand dollars.
Similarbid
- 19To raise, lift, or elevate something.
The fringed Curtaines of thine eyes aduance.
1610, William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”Note
An older sense in which advancing means raising, not moving ahead. In The Tempest, Prospero tells Miranda 'The fringed Curtaines of thine eye aduance': lift your eyelids and look up. The old printing uses u where we write v. Modern prose says raise or lift. In this sense the verb now sounds archaic, fitting for a banner in a pageant but stilted in everyday writing.
Checked 6 Nov 2026 · 4 facts
- Advance historically meant to raise or lift. en.wiktionary.org
- The First Folio reads 'eye', singular. Prospero speaks the line to Miranda. firstfolio.bodleian.ox.ac.uk
- The line means to lift one's eyelids and look up. shakespeare-navigators.ewu.edu
- The old spelling uses u for modern v in advance. en.wikipedia.org
Showing meanings only.
Practice
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Origin
Latin ab plus ante ("before") formed Late Latin ab ante, which led to Vulgar Latin *abanteāre and then to Anglo-Norman avauncier, borrowed into Middle English as avauncen. The "d" came in later by analogy with Latin ad-.