grow

      English

      Etymology

      From Middle English growen, from Old English grōwan (“to grow, increase, flourish, germinate”), from Proto-Germanic *grōaną (“to grow, grow green”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʰreH₁- (“to grow, become green”).

      cognates

      Cognate with Scots grow, grew (“to grow”), North Frisian grojen, growen (“to grow”), West Frisian groeie (“to grow”), Dutch groeien (“to grow”), Middle High German grüejen (“to grow, grow green”), Danish gro (“to grow”), Norwegian gro (“to grow”), Swedish gro (“to germinate, grow, sprout”), Icelandic gróa (“to grow”), Latin herba (“plant, herb, weed”), Swedish gröda (“crop”), North Frisian greyde (“growth, pasture”). Related to growth, grass, green.

      Pronunciation

      Verb

      grow (third-person singular simple present grows, present participle growing, simple past grew, past participle grown)

      1. (ergative) To become bigger.
        Children grow quickly.
      2. (intransitive) To appear or sprout.
        Flowers grew on the trees as summer approached.
        A long tail began to grow from his backside.
      3. (transitive) To cause or allow something to become bigger, especially to cultivate plants.
        • 2011 March 01, Peter Roff, “Another Foolish Move By Congress”, Fox News:
          The Bush administration – which sought to grow the number of fisheries managed under a program known as “catch shares”...
        He grows peppers and squash each summer in his garden.
        Have you ever grown your hair before?
      4. (copulative) To assume a condition or quality over time.
        The boy grew wise as he matured.
        The town grew smaller and smaller in the distance as we travelled.
        You have grown strong.

      Usage notes

      • Growed is a slang or dialect inflection for the simple past and past participle.
      • The use of grow transitively, as a synonym for increase, with an object that is not growing by itself (i.e living), is a neologism and contrary to the historical use of the word, as shown in the quotation above. Historically, grow has only been used transitively with living things (grow corn and potatoes, grow breasts, grow a tail).
      • The sense meaning "to assume a condition or quality" generally has a sense of physical or figurative increase. The condition or quality may be good or bad, but its quantity should be becoming more. For example, one might say "He grew more virtuous" or "He grew wickeder"—but "He grew less virtuous" would be awkward.

      Antonyms

      Derived terms

      Terms derived from grow

      Translations

      (intransitive) to become bigger
      (intransitive) to appear or sprout
      (transitive) to cause something to become bigger
      to assume a condition or quality
      The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Help:How to check translations.
      Translations to be checked

      References

      • grow at OneLook Dictionary Search
      ↑Jump back a section
      Last modified on 14 June 2013, at 19:14