Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To have complicating consequences or outgrowths: The problem merely ramified after the unsuccessful meeting.
- v. To send out branches or subordinate branchlike parts.
- v. To divide into or cause to extend in branches or subordinate branchlike parts.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To form branches; shoot into branches, as the stem of a plant, or anything analogous to it; branch out.
- To diverge in various ways or to different points; stretch out in different lines or courses; radiate.
- To divide into branches or parts; extend in different lines or directions.
Wiktionary
- v. To divide into branches or subdivisions.
- v. figuratively To spread or diversify into multiple fields or categories.
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To divide into branches or subdivisions.
- v. To shoot, or divide, into branches or subdivisions, as the stem of a plant.
- v. To be divided or subdivided, as a main subject.
WordNet 3.0
- v. divide into two or more branches so as to form a fork
- v. have or develop complicating consequences
- v. grow and send out branches or branch-like structures
Etymologies
- From French ramifier, from Medieval Latin *ramificare ("to branch, ramify"), from Latin rāmus ("a branch") + faciō ("do, make"). (Wiktionary)
- Middle English ramifien, to branch out, from Old French ramifier, from Medieval Latin rāmificāre : Latin rāmus, branch; see wrād- in Indo-European roots + Latin -ficāre, -fy. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“The word ramify has appeared in one Times article over the past year and only four times in the past five years, most recently in the July 11, 2010 Sunday Magazine cover article by Robert F.”
“Slide 8: The Ramage or Conical Clan • Internally ranked, or hierarchical, social organization • Tendency to "ramify," that is subordinate lineages split off main group to found new communities • Over time this process results in long-distance - island-hopping - migrations that resulted in peopling of Polynesia by Austronesian-speaking peoples”
“Sitting in a studio flat in Warren Street with the windows shut, I began to recall how sound would ramify around my uncle's house in south Calcutta, always suggesting an elsewhere; around this time, I became aware that the soundtracks in Satyajit Ray's and Jean Renoir's films were as intent on capturing this elsewhere as they were in attending to the main story.”
“But the incident shows that even minor mistakes or degraded systems can ramify throughout the grid.”
“A second wrinkle: the repercussions from YouTube's difficulties extend and ramify throughout the greater communications system, in a way that is quite unlike Life's.”
The Huffington Post: Is YouTube the Successor to Television -- Or to LIFE Magazine?
“Criticisms and piratical practices in any of these realms have the potential to ramify into major challenges to the conceptual structure of modern intellectual property itself.”
The Washington Post: Dangers of over-zealous intellectual property cops
“And once busts become severe enough, they prompt changes in the national mood that ramify well beyond economic affairs.”
“The point -- which I fear many Americans have ignored or denied -- is that Pakistanis are people who are suffering and will continue to suffer, as food shortages caused by the destruction of crops ramify through Pakistani society over the coming months and beyond.”
The Huffington Post: Ethan Casey: What Does Pakistan Have to Do With Haiti?
“He simply took a cutting from the tree of life, and, planting it in the rich soil of his imagination, let it ramify and burgeon as it would.”
“There's no single answer; some analysts attributed the jump to positive sales at Costco and Wal-Mart, plus a sense that the sub-prime debacle isn't going to ramify into a broader economic calamity.”
Adam Hanft: Market Hits High, Congress Hits President; A Different and Dangerous "Two Americas"
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘ramify’.
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4087 more...
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New words
new words or spelling issues
voluble, Metagrobolize, salubrious, calumny, fugacity, withdrawal, bourse, hypertrophy, leitmotif, argot, improvident, damask and 234 more...
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Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
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My favorites
foible, sidereal, amygdala, woodnote, cogitate, silvern, ollalieberry, ramify, diaphanous, surreality, myopia, subcelestial and 75 more...
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jaradgiese's Words
paronomasia, ostensible, insouciant, sobriquet, burlesque, insalubrious, apotheosis, hyperbole, connubial, felicity, florid, conurbation and 642 more...
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Words I Know
List of most of the words I've learned
garner, abase, abate, abdicate, abduct, aberration, abet, abhor, abide, abject, abjure, abnegation and 1046 more...
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Resource
katabatic, clerestory, haslet, alpenglow, purl, scumble, jessant, spavined, wayworn, creach, dottle, solferino and 165 more...
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words
diplopic, dolorous, farrago, surety, scuttlebutt, Arabesque, infarct, neurasthenia, lambent, expurge, univocal, simper and 395 more...
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fitting words
a list of words from the indo european root ar- and variations : to fit together
ambry, rede, coarctate, anarthrous, artiodactyl, exordium, harmony, army, armoire, arm, armada, armadillo and 349 more...
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conglomeration
wherewithal, wan, zoonotic, zoonosis, nebulous, nefarious, nascent, quiescent, quell, undercroft, unwitting, unutterable and 658 more...
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ash
ash
abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abide, abject, abjure and 4874 more...
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rememberers
prolix, ageusia, animadversion, anodyne, antic, arabesque, beadle, brachymetropia, colophon, desquamation, diaphoresis, diegesis and 3248 more...
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Known But Hazy
Words that I've repeatedly heard of, repeatedly looked up before, and still need a while to hammer into my head for sure.
piquant, magnate, lackadaisical, apocryphal, antipathy, aphorism, wiseacre, picaresque, imperious, rapacious, invidious, mendacious and 35 more...
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difficult-list39
quay, queasy, querulous, quibble, quiescent, quietude, quintessence, quisling, quorum, quotidian, raconteur, ragamuffin and 27 more...
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set 18
from 86 to 90
sequester, knell, drab, ascetic, feckless, conglomeration, felicity, perifidious, snivel, consanguinity, stilted, ludicrous and 63 more...
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Vocabulary
tacit, parquet, factotum, eddy, spangle, tarry, resplendent, demotic, rend, untoward, discernible, padre and 16 more...
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