proliferate
verb/pɹəˈlɪf.əɹ.eɪt/
Etymology Back-formation from proliferation.
1
Ambitransitive To increase in number or spread rapidly; to multiply.
- The flowers proliferated rapidly all spring.
- When no certain cure exists, quack remedies tend to proliferate and the history of quackery and secret cures is full of extraordinary forms of treatment for the various arthritic disorders.1976 March 27, F. Dudley Hart, “History of the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis”, in British Medical Journal, volume 1, number 6012, →DOI, →JSTOR, page 763:
2 more examples
- But through the oligopoly, charcoal fuel proliferated throughout London's trades and industries. By the 1200s, brewers and bakers, tilemakers, glassblowers, pottery producers, and a range of other craftsmen all became hour-to-hour consumers of charcoal.2006, Edwin Black, chapter 2, in Internal Combustion:
- After decades of the type of mismanagement that proliferated across all the nationalised industries, the government was already aware that British Railways was in deep trouble.2023 March 8, Howard Johnston, “Was Marples the real railway wrecker?”, in RAIL, number 978, page 50:
- Derived terms
- antiproliferating, hyperproliferate, hyperproliferated, hyperproliferating, myeloproliferate, nonproliferating, overproliferate, overproliferated, proliferative, proliferator, reproliferate, unproliferated
- Related terms
- proliferous, prolific