increasingly

American  

[in-kree-sing-lee] / ɪnˈkri sɪŋ li /

adverb

1. to an ever greater degree; more and more: Marketers are increasingly using video to create meaningful emotional connections with their consumers.

   He became increasingly nervous and overwrought and began to suffer bouts of depression.

   Marketers are increasingly using video to create meaningful emotional connections with their consumers.

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Etymology

Origin of increasingly

increasing ( def. ) + -ly

Explanation

This adverb applies to anything that is happening more often, in greater numbers, or with greater intensity. An increasingly hot summer keeps getting hotter. To increase something is to add to it numerically, like increasing the size of your family by having a baby. Anything that happens increasingly is growing in some way. An increasingly depressed person keeps getting sadder. An increasingly sick patient keeps getting worse. An increasingly corrupt government is getting less and less honest. When you see this word, you know something is intensifying.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

increasingly

India is on track to become the world’s third-largest economy, is indispensable to the balance of power in the Indo-Pacific, and is increasingly consequential in a restive Middle East.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 7, 2026

If that seems like an impossible contradiction, welcome to the mid-2020s, where reality seems increasingly like dystopian science fiction mixed with an especially opaque John le Carré spy thriller.

From Salon ● Sep. 7, 2026

But it also has a large residential population, who have become increasingly exasperated with tourists who fail to properly dispose of rubbish, smoke where they're not supposed to, and make too much noise.

From Barron's ● Sep. 7, 2026

Till now untried and untested in government, people seem increasingly willing to give them a go.

From BBC ● Sep. 7, 2026

As women increasingly became the chief money earners, they also increasingly became the heads of their families.

From "Shipwrecked!" by Martin W. Sandler

Related Words

• more
• more and more
• progressively