quadruple

American  

[kwo-droo-puhl, -druhp-uhl, kwod-roo-puhl] / kwɒˈdru pəl, -ˈdrʌp əl, ˈkwɒd rʊ pəl /

adjective

1. fourfold; consisting of four parts.

   a quadruple alliance.

2. four times as great.

3. Music. having four beats to a measure.

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noun

1. a number, amount, etc., four times as great as another.

2. something, as a series of acrobatic somersaults, made up of four clearly defined parts or stages.

   the first trapeze artist to perform a quadruple successfully.

verb (used with or without object)

• quadruples,
  present (3rd person singular)
• quadrupled,
  past participle,  past
• quadrupling
  present participle

1. to make or become four times as great.

   To serve 24 people, quadruple the recipe. My savings quadrupled in 20 years.

quadruple British  

/ kwɒˈdruːpəl, ˈkwɒdrʊpəl /

verb

1. to multiply by four or increase fourfold

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adjective

1. four times as much or as many; fourfold

2. consisting of four parts

noun

1. a quantity or number four times as great as another

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• quadrupleness
  noun
• quadruply
  adverb

Inflected Forms

Participles

• quadrupling
  present
• quadrupled
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• quadruple
  simple
• quadruples
  simple
• have quadrupled
  perfect
• has quadrupled
  perfect
• am quadrupling
  progressive
• are quadrupling
  progressive
• is quadrupling
  progressive
• have been quadrupling
  perfect progressive
• has been quadrupling
  perfect progressive

Past

• quadrupled
  simple
• had quadrupled
  perfect
• was quadrupling
  progressive
• were quadrupling
  progressive
• had been quadrupling
  perfect progressive

Future

• will quadruple
  simple
• will have quadrupled
  perfect
• will be quadrupling
  progressive
• will have been quadrupling
  perfect progressive

Etymology

Origin of quadruple

1325–75; Middle English < Latin quadruplus; cf. quadru-, duple

Explanation

When something is made up of four parts, you can describe it using the adjective quadruple, like a young gymnast's quadruple somersault. A common use of quadruple is in the medical term "quadruple bypass," which is a type of heart surgery that involves all four chambers of the patient's heart. You can also use quadruple to mean "four times as many," as when you order a quadruple-shot latte, with four shots of espresso. The Latin root word quadruplare, "make fourfold," comes from the suffix quadri-, or "four."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

quadruple quadruples quadrupled quadrupling

Rebecca Onion digs into the movie’s many twists and turns, culminating in “the psychological-thriller equivalent of a plot quadruple axel.”

From Slate ● Oct. 5, 2026

The student, from Oxford, is a quadruple amputee, having lost the lower parts of her arms and legs to meningitis when she was just two years old.

From BBC ● Sep. 21, 2026

Chips and Science Act, among other funding sources, Coherent plans to double the size and quadruple the production capacity of the site in Sherman.

From MarketWatch ● Sep. 19, 2026

Also, in the new translation, readers will get even more of Wilson’s expertise: “I’m also going to quadruple the number of endnotes because endnotes are really fun to write.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 1, 2026

For example, if the meter of the music feels like "strong-weak-strong-weak," it is in duple meter. "strong-weak-weak-strong-weak-weak" is triple meter, and "strong-weak-weak-weak" is quadruple.

From "Understanding Basic Music Theory" by Catherine Schmidt-Jones and Russel Jones

When financing costs are added, the costs to ratepayers’ quadruples to more than $340 billion over the life of these projects.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 4, 2026

Arteta certainly won't be talking about quadruples just yet - but Arsenal fans can dream can't they?

From BBC ● Feb. 3, 2026

Mr. Biden signed an executive action earlier this month that quadruples tariffs on those cars to 100 percent.

From New York Times ● May 27, 2024

Huang and her team have shown that their approach quadruples the resolution of conventional transmission electron microscopes.

From Science Daily ● Feb. 26, 2024

The flower quadruples in size, and the petals lengthen to catch her.

From "The Belles" by Dhonielle Clayton

The UN's migration agency said on Saturday that, since July, 76,000 people had fled the fighting, a figure that had quadrupled since last week.

From Barron's ● Sep. 12, 2026

The Himalayan nation’s hydropower capacity has quadrupled in a decade, and the 200-plus projects under construction would more than double that again.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 10, 2026

The number of $100 million-plus business owners has, adjusting for inflation, more than quadrupled since 2001.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 4, 2026

These jobs figures followed a federal debt frenzy in July, when the federal deficit nearly quadrupled from the previous month, to $432 billion.

From MarketWatch ● Sep. 4, 2026

Yet the U.S. incarceration rate quadrupled, the Finnish rate fell by 60 percent, and the German rate was stable in that period.

From "The New Jim Crow" by Michelle Alexander

Energy regulator Ofgem has estimated that £70bn of investment is required in the grid between 2025 and 2031, quadrupling the current rate of investment.

From BBC ● Sep. 28, 2026

AI startup Instinct on Monday said it had raised $1 billion at a $10 billion valuation, quadrupling the startup’s valuation in only a month.

From MarketWatch ● Sep. 28, 2026

Colby Parkinson became one of Stafford’s primary targets and scored eight touchdowns, quadrupling his previous career best.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 16, 2026

Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan this week boosted their share-price targets despite SpaceX’s first-half capital expenditures quadrupling from a year earlier.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 6, 2026

I start to pedal like my life depends on it, my RPM quadrupling.

From "Five Feet Apart" by Rachael Lippincott