incremental
Americanadjective
adjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of incremental
Explanation
If you are making incremental progress in math, you are moving slowly but steadily forward. Incremental describes regular, measurable movements that are usually small. Sometimes a basketball team might make a huge improvement, like a team that is 32-50 one year and then 50-32 the next. More often, progress is small and tiny — incremental. Anytime something is changing in any way, and the change is slow and steady, you can talk about incremental changes. A lot of life is like that. You might prefer to be making great or even miraculous progress, but incremental gains are better than none at all.
Vocabulary lists containing incremental
Essential Academic Vocabulary for High School Students, List 1
Looking to grow your vocabulary? Check out this interactive, curated word list from our team of English language specialists at Vocabulary.com – one of over 17,000 lists we've built to help learners worldwide!
ACT Vocabulary List
Interested in learning more words like this one? Our team at Vocabulary.com has got you covered! You can review flashcards, quiz yourself, practice spelling, and more – and it's all completely free to use!
This Week in Words: October 28 - November 3, 2017
Want to remember this word for good? Start your learning journey today with our library of interactive, themed word lists built by the experts at Vocabulary.com – we'll help you make the most of your study time!
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.
"Engagement is slow, progress is incremental, and reversals are frequent," is the UN's sober summary of the past five years of on-off dialogue.
From BBC ● Aug. 14, 2026
He tells clients in a note that ResMed will likely raise prices after its fiscal first quarter, to meet its guidance for incremental gross margin expansion.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 10, 2026
However, Child warns that constraints, mainly around wafer capacity, prevent the company from confirming how much of this incremental demand they can currently ship.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 7, 2026
Rubner added that leveraged exchange-traded-fund assets have declined more than $60 billion from a June peak, “removing one of the largest sources of incremental leverage that had fueled the first-half rally.”
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 4, 2026
All of the possible reasons for why New York’s crime rate dropped are changes that happened at the margin; they were incremental changes.
From "The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell
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.
