increasing

Pluralincreasings

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of increase.

   Global temperatures have been increasing over the past century.

   The company is increasing its investment in renewable energy.

   Note

   The -ing form serves both sides of the verb. It is intransitive when a quantity grows on its own (temperatures have been increasing) and transitive when someone makes it grow (increasing its investment). After be it builds progressive tenses, and as a gerund it acts as a noun. Before a noun it shades into the adjective, as in the increasing brightness of W. B. Maxwell's The Mirror and the Lamp (1918).

   Increasing the dose too quickly can cause side effects.

   Prices kept increasing all year.

2. 2
   adjective

   Becoming greater in amount, size, or degree as time passes.

   The team faced increasing pressure as the deadline approached.

   An increasing share of shoppers now buy their groceries online.

   Similarrising, mounting

   Oppositedecreasing, diminishing

   Note

   A participle that has settled into an adjective. It is increase plus the participial -ing, and it now stands before nouns, as in steadily increasing demand or an increasing concern. It is not comparable, so nobody says more increasing; an adverb such as steadily supplies the degree instead. What separates it from the verb form is function: here the word describes a noun rather than carrying a tense.

3. 3
   nouncountable

   A discrete instance of growth that adds to an amount, size, or number.

   The sweater pattern calls for an increasing at both edges of every tenth row.

   Careful increasings along the seam give the garment its tapered fit.

   Oppositedecrease

   Note

   A knitter's noun, and a separate formation from the adjective. It comes from Middle English encresing, built with the gerund -ing rather than the participial one. It names a shaping step, such as working two stitches into one, and it takes a plural: The Ladies' Companion and Monthly Magazine of 1864 says "begin the increasings for the chest." The same pattern then switches to the verb: "increasing in every fourth row."

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