Wiktionary

proliferate

English

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Etymology

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Back-formation from proliferation.

Pronunciation

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Verb

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proliferate (third-person singular simple present proliferates, present participle proliferating, simple past and past participle proliferated)

  1. (transitive, intransitive) To increase in number or spread rapidly; to multiply.
    The flowers proliferated rapidly all spring.
    • 1976 March 27, F. Dudley Hart, “History of the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis”, in British Medical Journal, volume 1, number 6012, →DOI, →JSTOR, page 763:
      When no certain cure exists, quack remedies tend to proliferate and the history of quackery and secret cures is full of extraordinary forms of treatment for the various arthritic disorders.
    • 2006, Edwin Black, chapter 2, in Internal Combustion‎[1]:
      But through the oligopoly, charcoal fuel proliferated throughout London's trades and industries.  By the 1200s, brewers and bakers, tilemakers, glassblowers, pottery producers, and a range of other craftsmen all became hour-to-hour consumers of charcoal.
    • 2023 March 8, Howard Johnston, “Was Marples the real railway wrecker?”, in RAIL, number 978, page 50:
      After decades of the type of mismanagement that proliferated across all the nationalised industries, the government was already aware that British Railways was in deep trouble.

Derived terms

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Translations

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Further reading

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Italian

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Etymology 1

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Verb

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proliferate

  1. inflection of proliferare:
    1. second-person plural present indicative
    2. second-person plural imperative

Etymology 2

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Participle

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proliferate f pl

  1. feminine plural of proliferato

Anagrams

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Spanish

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Verb

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proliferate

  1. second-person singular voseo imperative of proliferar combined with te
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