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 ( ramus ) + -ificāre -ify

Example Sentences

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

By insisting on a pluralistic regime, they then drive a relentlessly ramifying scene of social complexity.

From Salon

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

“Historical inquiries are ramifying in a hundred directions at once, and there is no coordination among them,” Bernard Bailyn, one of the nation’s most esteemed historians, wrote a few years earlier.

From New York Times

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

From Scientific American