DictionaryAI

escalate

verb
SayES-kuh-layt/ˈɛs.kə.leɪt/

Formsescalates, escalating, escalated

4 meanings of escalate

Practice

  1. 1
    verbtransitive or intransitive
    To increase something in extent or intensity; to make a situation more serious or intense.

    The protests escalated rapidly once the police moved in.

    Leaders on both sides agreed not to escalate tensions any further.

    Similarintensify, heighten, increase, worsen, mount

    Oppositede-escalate, subside, defuse, ease

    Note

    A verb that works with or without an object. Trouble can escalate on its own (violence escalated during the election), or something can escalate it (the shooting escalated the existing hostility). The verb is a back-formation from escalator. It often marks a change of scale with into: a small fight escalates into a big one, and minor disruption can escalate into significant delays.

  2. 2
    verbtransitive
    To refer a customer, problem, or similar matter to the next tier up in authority within a technical support operation.

    Support staff escalate unresolved tickets to the senior engineers.

    She escalated the outage to the on-call team within minutes.

    Similarrefer, transfer, forward

    Note

    Support-desk jargon, where help is arranged in numbered tiers: a tech 1 escalates the caller to a tech 2. The object can be the person as easily as the problem, and the destination follows to. Unlike the "intensify" meaning, this sense always takes an object. Nothing escalates here by itself; someone escalates it.

  3. 3
    verbrare
    To climb or ascend, especially up a wall or steep surface.
    We were escalating up a few hundred feet into the canyon.
    2002, V. William Barrett, Sticks and Shovels: A Modern Western Mystery

    Similarclimb, ascend, scale

    Oppositedescend

    Note

    Climbing in this sense is usually figurative, and it is usually up a ladder. A 1975 Federal Reporter opinion speaks of one escalating the ladder of crime, and Richard A. D'Aveni's Hypercompetition (1994) pictures firms escalating up a ladder of competitive rungs. The use is uncommon, and up often follows even though climbing already implies it. In ordinary prose, climb reads more naturally.

Less common meaning

  1. 4
    verbrareintransitive
    To move between floors by riding an escalator.
    Escalating up the up escalator at Green Park Tube station was a hundred times better than walking up two loads of steps at Oxford Circus.
    2022, Kes Gray, Daisy and the Trouble with London
    There were people just about everywhere, packing the garish fluorescent-lit corridors, riding in humming golf carts, escalating up and down escalators, floating along on those George Jetson moving sidewalk thingies.
    2014, James Patterson, Burn (Michael Bennett)
    Note

    The verb at its most literal, going back to the machine it was formed from. It is rare and turns up mostly in fiction. James Patterson's Burn has crowds escalating up and down escalators, and Kes Gray's Daisy and the Trouble with London has someone escalating up the up escalator. The doubling is part of the effect, so use it knowing it will read as deliberate.

Practice

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Origin

A back-formation from "escalator."