- Increase
- Increase In"crease (?; 277), n. [OE. encres, encresse. See
{Increase}, v. i.]
[1913 Webster]
1. Addition or enlargement in size, extent, quantity, number,
intensity, value, substance, etc.; augmentation; growth.
[1913 Webster]
As if increase of appetite had grown By what it fed on. --Shak. [1913 Webster]
For things of tender kind for pleasure made Shoot up with swift increase, and sudden are decay'd. --Dryden. [1913 Webster]
2. That which is added to the original stock by augmentation or growth; produce; profit; interest. [1913 Webster]
Take thou no usury of him, or increase. --Lev. xxv. 36. [1913 Webster]
Let them not live to taste this land's increase. --Shak. [1913 Webster]
3. Progeny; issue; offspring. [1913 Webster]
All the increase of thy house shall die in the flower of their age. --1 Sam. ii. 33. [1913 Webster]
4. Generation. [Obs.] ``Organs of increase.'' --Shak. [1913 Webster]
5. (Astron.) The period of increasing light, or luminous phase; the waxing; -- said of the moon. [1913 Webster]
Seeds, hair, nails, hedges, and herbs will grow soonest if set or cut in the increase of the moon. --Bacon. [1913 Webster]
{Increase twist}, the twixt of a rifle groove in which the angle of twist increases from the breech to the muzzle.
Syn: Enlargement; extension; growth; development; increment; addition; accession; production. [1913 Webster]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English. 2000.