proliferate
Americanverb (used with or without object)
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to grow or produce by multiplication of parts, as in budding or cell division, or by procreation.
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to increase in number or spread rapidly and often excessively.
verb
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to grow or reproduce (new parts, cells, etc) rapidly
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to grow or increase or cause to grow or increase rapidly
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of proliferate
First recorded in 1870–75; prolifer(ous) + -ate 1
Explanation
When something proliferates, it's growing, spreading or multiplying really quickly. Bunny rabbits have a habit of proliferating, as do dandelions in untended gardens and funny YouTube videos on the internet. Proliferate was originally a biological term used to describe the growth of cells and producing offspring. It wasn’t until 1961 that we started to use proliferate more generally to talk about everything from the spread of nuclear weapons to the wide growth of Walmart. Other similar words include expand, reproduce, snowball, and spawn.
Vocabulary lists containing proliferate
Essential Academic Vocabulary for High School Students, List 1
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The Vernal Vocabulary of Spring
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Just Mercy
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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.
Defense applications in space will also proliferate in the coming years.
From Barron's • May 14, 2026
If predictions turn out to be true, in a few years agents will proliferate to the point where they outnumber people on enterprise networks.
From Barron's • May 8, 2026
"Given the rate of AI progress, it will not be long before such capabilities proliferate, potentially beyond actors who are committed to deploying them safely."
From BBC • Apr. 17, 2026
“Given the rate of AI progress, it will not be long before such capabilities proliferate, potentially beyond actors who are committed to deploying them safely,” Anthropic says.
From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 8, 2026
Now we are wondering whether nuclear weapons will proliferate around the world by the same often-violent process, from the eight countries that presently possess them.
From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
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.
