ramify

American  

[ram-uh-fahy] / ˈræm əˌfaɪ /

verb (used with or without object)

ramified, ramifying

1. to divide or spread out into branches or branchlike parts; extend into subdivisions.

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ramify British  

/ ˈræmɪˌfaɪ /

verb

1. to divide into branches or branchlike parts

2. (intr) to develop complicating consequences; become complex

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Other Word Forms

• multiramified
  adjective
• unramified
  adjective

Etymology

Origin of ramify

1535–45; < Middle French ramifier < Medieval Latin rāmificāre, equivalent to Latin rām ( us ) branch ( see ramus) + -ificāre -ify

Explanation

The verb ramify describes something that branches off or spreads, like the new subway lines that ramify across your city and reach even the neighborhoods farthest from the center. Ramify came into English through French, but it traces all the way back to the Latin word ramus, meaning "branch." It can describe things that literally branch out in segments, or it can be used figuratively to describe things that spread, like the effects of a new policy that ramify through your school. Ramify might seem like a strange word, but you probably know the related word ramification, a consequence that stems — or branches — from some other action.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

ramify ramified ramifying

But in complex technological systems, small mistakes may rapidly ramify and compound into large problems.

From Scientific American ● Sep. 30, 2021

Perhaps surprisingly, the effects of the growth of the penal state ramify well beyond city streets, all the way, for instance, to the Gulf of Mexico.

From Washington Post ● Jan. 8, 2016

"Everything that could fork, ramify, coil, flutter, fold back or thread through itself," wrote Leigh Fermor of the Landsknechts, "suddenly sprang to action."

From The Guardian ● Oct. 12, 2012

The consequences of the U.S. response to the terrorist attacks of September 2001 will ramify for decades.

From Time ● May 24, 2012

I need to know that ramify and bifurcate are synonyms, if they even are?

From "Burning Blue" by Paul Griffin

Biodegradable yet tough enough to withstand hurricanes, leaves get their strength from their “skeleton,” a highly ramified network of fine veins made of a woody compound called lignocellulose.

From Science Magazine ● Nov. 24, 2024

Despite his conflation of terms, Butler’s history is an indispensable account of a revolution in acting that ramified beyond the theater, even as he vacillates on whether the Method ever truly “died.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 26, 2022

His book describes in great detail the immensely ramified activities of the "underground" Communist movement.

From Time Magazine Archive

As a philosopher Hu Shih is one of the outstanding disciples of the ramified pragmatist, John Dewey.

From Time Magazine Archive

“The results are always more significant if the patient and I are alone when the psychosubstantiation tests are performed. External distractions have a deleterious effect on the ramified scores.”

From "Flowers for Algernon" by Daniel Keyes

Even more cringeworthy are the exhumations of other ’80s and ’90s subcultures: pentagrams drawn on Trapper Keepers, unwieldy tubs of muscle powder, whiteboy ciphers drowning out Fugees CDs at backyard keggers in the ramifying burbs.

From New York Times ● Oct. 3, 2019

Because it is possible to think of the Internet itself, in all its incomprehensible vastness, as an exponentially ramifying network of commentary and metacommentary.

From The New Yorker ● Jun. 17, 2015

This is an essential truth, ramifying and growing deeper across America.

From Time ● Sep. 26, 2014

Franzen garlands his city and story in soot, smog, intrigue, and endlessly ramifying plot lines.

From Slate ● Nov. 8, 2013

The disagreement, which has ramifying political implications, is encapsulated by Amazonia, the subject to which I will now turn.

From "1491" by Charles C. Mann