increment

[in-kruh-muhnt, ing-]

noun

1. something added or gained; addition; increase.

2. profit; gain.

3. the act or process of increasing; growth.

4. an amount by which something increases or grows.

   a weekly increment of $25 in salary.

5. one of a series of regular additions.

   You may make deposits in increments of $500.

6. Mathematics.

   1. the difference between two values of a variable; a change, positive, negative, or zero, in an independent variable.

   2. the increase of a function due to an increase in the independent variable.

increment

/ ˈɪnkrɪmənt /

noun

1. an increase or addition, esp one of a series

2. the act of increasing; augmentation

3. maths a small positive or negative change in a variable or function. Symbol: Δ, as in Δ x or Δ f

Other Word Forms

• incremental adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of increment¹

1375–1425; late Middle English < Latin incrēmentum an increase, equivalent to incrē ( scere ) to grow ( increase ) + -mentum -ment

Word History and Origins

Origin of increment¹

C15: from Latin incrēmentum growth, _increase

Example Sentences

The bidding war stretched 20 minutes before a different anonymous collector bidding over the telephone and lobbing bids in multimillion-dollar increments eventually won the work.

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Eight years later, the GOP — the party that has spent decades trying to privatize Social Security and Medicare — is trying a different approach: Destroying the program by increments, one painful piece at a time.

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The challenge is tied to the interval between computational steps: to capture rapid events such as supernova evolution, the simulation must advance in very small time increments.

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“Caesar had now been performing for eight years,” Mr. Margolick writes, “and, thin and haggard, wore every week of it . . . it had happened in spurts rather than in increments.”

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Cohen, the numismatist, said coins appeal to many buyers because they can be sold in increments, rather than all at once like a bar.

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