Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To make larger or greater, as by increased growth.
- v. To grow together; fuse.
- v. To grow or increase gradually, as by addition.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To grow by accretion; gather additions from without.
- To be added; adhere; become attached by a process of accretion.
- To cause to grow or unite.
- Grown together; formed by accretion; accreted.
- In biology, grown together: said of parts normally separate but naturally grafted. See accretion, 2.
Wiktionary
- v. intransitive : To grow together, combine; to fuse.
- v. intransitive : To adhere; to grow or to be added to gradually.
- v. transitive : To make adhere; to add; to make larger or more, as by growing.
- adj. Characterized by accretion; made up; as, accrete matter.
- adj. botany Grown together - Gray
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To grow together.
- v. To adhere; to grow (to); to be added; -- with
to . - v. To make adhere; to add.
- adj. Characterized by accretion; made up.
- adj. (Bot.) Grown together.
WordNet 3.0
- v. grow together (of plants and organs)
- v. grow or become attached by accretion
Etymologies
- Back-formation from accretion. (Wiktionary)
- Back-formation from accretion. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“And over the course of seven seasons, they accrete into interesting people as their backstories and personalities develop.”
“If you buy them at a discount, you will be able to accrete the negative good will and get an immediate positive response in earnings.”
“Soil, trees and fauna accrete to the zaratan, the monstrous whalelike creatures, which are being poachedfor bones and skin, killing off a whole ecosystem.”
“Usually, plot is something I allow to accrete while I'm tending to things like characterization and mood and theme.”
“One of the things that's always impressed me about the Stargate universe is how we gradually accrete technological advances (The various types of battleship, the 302s and the Pegasus Bridge all spring to mind).”
“SFS: (Reader submitted) - One of the things that's always impressed me about the Stargate universe is how we gradually accrete technological advances (The various types of battleship, the 302s and the Pegasus Bridge all spring to mind).”
INTERVIEW: Consulting Producer Joseph Mallozzi Talks About Plans for Stargate Universe
“The people who start religions -- or around whom religions accrete, like layers of silt -- are already in a space where other people yearn to be.”
“One or two potent images that may, in time, accrete a plot around them.”
“They could continue business as usual, in which case the subsidy reserve plus capital would accrete to the point where the firms actually become "too safe to fail.”
“You can accrete wealth and trappings, eat good food, live in fine houses and enjoy a "good" life: just don't rock the boat.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘accrete’.
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WF - list of EN back-formations
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_back-formations
aborigine, accrete, acculturate, admix, admixture, adolesce, adsorb, adulate, advect, aesthete, air-condition, anticline and 212 more...
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Words That Can Be Typed Entirely With...
Words made of the following: qwertasdfgzxcvb. I've stood on the shoulders of giants... users mollusque and reesetee made similar lists before I even existed on Wordnik. :)
stewardesses, red tea, waves, axes, wrest, qat, waver, created, dressed, stress, crater, vexes and 50 more...
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theyearofglad's list
Awesome words.
palimpsest, portmanteau, prolix, sycophant, eschew, revenant, haecceity, velleity, equipoise, caesura, soteriology, inchoate and 23 more...
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Baby Got Back-Formations
"A new word created by removing an affix from an already existing word, as vacuum clean from vacuum cleaner, or by removing what is mistakenly thought to be an affix, as pea from the earlier Englis...
resurrect, enthuse, couth, donate, emote, greed, isolate, manipulate, orate, prequel, spectate, upholster and 94 more...
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Words to Learn
colloquium, resilient, ruminate, missive, sylvan, indefatigable, preclude, prowess, quiescent, caustic, verdant, specter and 119 more...
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GRE
Taisha GRE Bible
archaic, archetype, archipelago, architect, archive, arctic, ardor, arduous, argot, arid, armory, arrest and 289 more...
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anotherfailedattempt's Words
kakistocracy, conflagration, pollyanna, equanimity, punctillious, obstreperous, ribald, belligerent, truculent, verbose, lachrymose, onanism and 278 more...
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Rabindranath Not Included
i can't never forget thiccyn's!
bubaline, dezinkhornifistib..., hirundine, bee veil, cuckoo spit, resistentialism, hobthrush, burniebee, hookem-snivey, fattiehead, mompyns, mons and 142 more...
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word list
abandon, ache, augment, avow, atone, approbate, apprehend, abut, apostatize, abase, abash, abate and 155 more...
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list1
abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, abet, abeyance, abhor, abide, abject, abjure, ablution and 106 more...
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What Is the Sound of One Hand Typing?
Words you can type with one hand--if you learned how to type formally. Hunt-and-peck method doesn't count. ;-) I'm keeping it to five or more letters to avoid an excessively lengthy list.
<...racecar, start, create, desert, dessert, secret, secrete, sweet, tresses, poppy, puppy, homonym and 141 more...
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random
words I read but don't know
nascent, proxy, desultory, charlatan, churlish, emaciated, gaudy, shill, lurid, frisson, marauding, plunder and 610 more...
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Ironweed
Words gathered while reading Ironweed by William Kennedy.
asteraceae, brogan, gravid, gandy, advent, slithy, dipso, flinty, suspire, henna, heller, nutsy and 90 more...
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ideas out loud
bandwagon, middle, via, web, fly, thru, safety, thor, swoosh, top, network effect, matrix and 200 more...
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Useful Words
I can use these.
aptronym, haplology, ectopia, folderol, volute, caryatid, spandrel, pendulous, miasmic, gelid, dotty, anomie and 256 more...
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Word of Infinite Jest
quincunx, plosivity, prolix, aleatory, diagnate, appetitive, experialist, candidiatic, chapeau, perfidiously, antitheory, décolletage and 150 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for accrete.
chained_bear Usage on dendrite. Nov 11, 2008