Dictionary

proliferate en · VERB

Pronunciation

• (Southern-England) audio
• /pɹəˈlɪf.əɹ.eɪt/

Etymology

Back-formation from proliferation.

Meanings

1. (ambitransitive) To increase in number or spread rapidly; to multiply.
   • The flowers proliferated rapidly all spring.
   • 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. 2023 March 8, Howard Johnston, “Was Marples the real railway wrecker?”, in RAIL, number 978, page 50:
   • 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. 2006, Edwin Black, chapter 2, in Internal Combustion:
   • 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. 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:

Forms

Deriveds

proliferator · unproliferated · antiproliferating · hyperproliferate · overproliferate · reproliferate · proliferative · hyperproliferated · nonproliferating · overproliferated · hyperproliferating · myeloproliferate

Relateds

proliferous · prolific

Translations (24)

mi koke (to increase in number or spread) · cmn 劇增 /剧增 (to increase in number or spread) · es proliferar (to increase in number or spread) · ru распространи́ться (to increase in number or spread) · fi lisääntyä nopeasti (to increase in number or spread) · fi levitä nopeasti (to increase in number or spread) · nl prolifereren (to increase in number or spread) · bg разпространявам се (to increase in number or spread) · cmn 擴散 /扩散 (to increase in number or spread) · de sich vermehren (to increase in number or spread) · ru размно́житься (to increase in number or spread) · sh пролифери́рати (to increase in number or spread) · cmn 增殖 (to increase in number or spread) · ru распространя́ть (to increase in number or spread) · nl snel vermenigvuldigen (to increase in number or spread) · mi whakaranea (to increase in number or spread) · cmn 增生 (to increase in number or spread) · pt proliferar (to increase in number or spread) · sh proliferírati (to increase in number or spread) · ru распространя́ться (to increase in number or spread) · cmn 激增 (to increase in number or spread) · ru размножа́ться (to increase in number or spread) · de sich ausbreiten (to increase in number or spread) · ru распространи́ть (to increase in number or spread)