cumulate
Americanverb (used with object)
adjective
verb
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to accumulate
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(tr) to combine (two or more sequences) into one
adjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of cumulate
1525–35; < Latin cumulātus (past participle of cumulāre to heap up, pile up, accumulate), equivalent to cumul ( us ) a heap, pile, mass, cumulus + -ātus -ate 1
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
During sleep, brain cells produce bursts of electrical pulses that cumulate into rhythmic waves -- a sign of heightened brain cell function.
From Science Daily ● Feb. 28, 2024
Peters, B. J., Day, J. M. D. & Taylor, L. A. Early mantle heterogeneities in the Réunion hotspot source inferred from highly siderophile elements in cumulate xenoliths.
From Nature ● Feb. 27, 2018
The later Swiss laws allow electors to cumulate three votes, but not more, upon any one candidate, so that the success of popular candidates is assured.
From Proportional Representation A Study in Methods of Election by John H. Humphreys
These cumulate rather than change: they become reptiles without ceasing to be fishes, if I may so express it; they develop lungs as they grow up, and yet keep their gills.
From The History of a Mouthful of Bread And its effect on the organization of men and animals by Jean Macé
Why may there not be different points of view for surveying it, within each of which all data harmonize, and which the observer may therefore either choose between, or simply cumulate one upon another?
From The Will to Believe : and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy by William James
“This creates a compounding effect where the final price of a good reflects not just the direct increase in the local energy price but the cumulated effects of price increases across international suppliers.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 13, 2026
It now sees the cumulated free cash flow over the 2021-2023 period at around 3.5 billion euros from around 4.0 billion euros previously.
From Reuters ● Oct. 27, 2021
Germany, with more than 300,000 cumulated applications, and Sweden, with 100,000, are the E.U.’s top receiving countries.
From Time ● Aug. 23, 2016
With her dusty scrolls, Clio is not just the muse of history, but an emblem of the cumulated wisdom of the ages.
From The Guardian ● Sep. 21, 2010
Never did woman of rank step more triumphantly over the barriers which the cumulated custom of ages has built between the classes of society.
From The Vicar's Daughter by George MacDonald
The trust funds were a way of cumulating workers’ aggregate tax payments to ensure an equal sum would be paid out again, in aggregate, at some point.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 11, 2026
The longer the race, the more crucial it is to be conservative with pacing, since fatigue in longer races reflects slowly cumulating processes, such as glycogen depletion and tissue damage.”
From New York Times ● Nov. 3, 2015
The steady, cumulating influences of the whole atmosphere of civic life must lead to a slow but persistent change.
From Psychology and Social Sanity by Hugo Münsterberg
This arrangement often led to a cumulating divergence from radial lines in some of the partitions, which irregularity was taken up in one room, as in this instance, in the space near the gate.
From A Study of Pueblo Architecture: Tusayan and Cibola Eighth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1886-1887, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1891, pages 3-228 by Henry Hobart Nichols
We were now only nineteen miles from Jacksboro, in the valley of the Clinch, but the distance was multiplied by the cumulating difficulties of the way.
From Military Reminiscences of the Civil War, Volume 2 November 1863-June 1865 by Jacob Dolson Cox
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
