accretion

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See also: accrétion

English

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WOTD – 21 August 2024

Etymology

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PIE word
*h₂éd

Learned borrowing from Latin accrētiō (“increase, increment”) + English -ion (suffix forming nouns denoting actions or processes, or their results). Accrētiō is derived from accrēscō (“to grow, increase”) +‎ -tiō (suffix forming nouns denoting actions or processes, or their results);[1] and accrēscō is from ac- (a variant of ad-, prefix meaning ‘to’, or having an intensifying effect) +‎ crēscō (“to grow; to increase”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *ḱer- (“to cause to grow; to grow; to nourish”)).

Doublet of accrue, crescent, and increase.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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accretion (countable and uncountable, plural accretions)

  1. (uncountable, also figurative) Increase by natural growth, especially the gradual increase of organic bodies by the internal addition of matter; organic growth; also, the amount of such growth. [from early 17th c.]
    Synonym: (archaic) accrescence
    Antonym: nonaccretion
  2. (uncountable) (Gradual) increase by an external addition of matter; (countable) an instance of this.
    Synonym: (archaic) accrescence
    Antonym: nonaccretion
    Near-synonym: accumulation
    A mineral augments not by growth, but by accretion.
    • 1627 (indicated as 1626), Francis [Bacon], “VII. Century. [Experiments in Consort, Touching the Affinities, and Differences, betweene Plants and Inanimate Bodies.]”, in Sylua Syluarum: Or A Naturall Historie. In Ten Centuries. […], London: […] William Rawley […]; [p]rinted by J[ohn] H[aviland] for William Lee […], →OCLC, paragraph 602, page 154:
      […] Plants doe nouriſh; Inanimate Bodies doe not: They haue an Accretion, but no Alimentation.
    • 1678, Thomas Hobbes, “Of Gravity and Gravitation”, in Decameron Physiologicum: Or, Ten Dialogues of Natural Philosophy. […], London: […] J[ames] C[ottrel] for W[illiam] Crook[e] […], →OCLC, page 94:
      God hath from the beginning made all the Kindes of Hard, and Heavie, and Diaphanous Bodies that are, and of ſuch Figure and magnitude as he thought fit; but hovv ſmall ſoever, they may by accretion become greater in the Mine, or perhaps by generation, though vve knovv not hovv.
    • 1849 October 9, Rufus Wilmot Griswold, “Edgar Poe”, in N[athaniel] Parker Willis, Hurry-graphs; or, Sketches of Scenery, Celebrities and Society, Taken from Life, 2nd edition, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner, published 1851, →OCLC, page 241:
      Suddenly starting from a proposition, exactly and sharply defined, in terms of utmost simplicity and clearness, he rejected the forms of customary logic, and by a crystalline process of accretion, built up his ocular demonstrations in forms of gloomiest and ghastliest grandeur, or in those of the most airy and delicious beauty—so minutely and distinctly, yet so rapidly, that the attention which was yielded to him was chained till it stood among his wonderful creations—till he himself dissolved the spell, and brought his hearers back to common and base existence, by vulgar fancies or exhibitions of the ignoblest passion.
    • 1890 August, Amelia Gere Mason, “The Women of the French Salons: The Salons of the Eighteenth Century”, in The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine, volume XVIII (New Series; volume XL overall), number 4, New York: The Century Company, →OCLC, page 596, column 1:
      Our social life is largely a form, a whirl, a commercial relation, a display, a duty, the result of external accretion, not of internal growth. It is not in any sense a unity, nor an expression of the best intellectual life, which seeks other channels.
    • 1910 October, Jack London, chapter XI, in Burning Daylight, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, →OCLC, part I, page 106:
      Two-story log buildings, in the business part of town, brought him from forty to fifty thousand dollars apiece. These fresh accretions of capital were immediately invested in other ventures.
    • 2012 March 16, Edward Tenner, “Why Wikipedia’s Fans Shouldn’t Gloat”, in The Atlantic‎[1], Washington, D.C.: The Atlantic Monthly Group, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2023-06-03:
      Written by accretion rather than from a single author's interpretation Wikipedia has a neo-positivist mania for facts that devalues interpretation in depth, yet in matching [Otto] Friedrich's review against [Vladimir] Nabokov it also shows that it is far from neutral.
    • 2019, Shoshana Zuboff, “‘We Make Them Dance’: Surveillance Capitalism, the Rise of Instrumentarian Power, and the Threat to Human Rights”, in Rikke Frank Jørgensen, editor, Human Rights in the Age of Platforms, Cambridge, Massachusetts, London: MIT Press, →ISBN, page 25:
      The systematic accretion of violence and complicity that engulfed whole populations at extreme velocity invoked a kind of bewilderment that ended in paralysis, even for many of the greatest minds of the twentieth century.
    1. (geology) The process by which material is added to a geological feature; specifically, to a tectonic plate at a subduction zone.
      Antonyms: attrition, erosion
  3. (uncountable, also figurative) Followed by of: external addition of matter to a thing which causes it to grow, especially in amount or size.
    • 1713 October 19 (Gregorian calendar), Richard Steele, “October 8. [1713].”, in The Englishman: Being the Sequel of the Guardian, collected edition, number 2, London: […] Sam[uel] Buckley […], published 1714, →OCLC, page 12:
      [W]hile ſome fevv grevv rich by turning Money in their ovvn Banks, there vvas a falſe Appearance of VVealth vvithin, but no Accretion of Riches from abroad.
  4. (uncountable) The process of separate particles aggregating or coalescing together; concretion; (countable) a thing formed in this manner.
    The accretion of particles forms a solid mass.
    • a. 1677 (date written), Matthew Hale, “The Sixth Evidence of Fact Proving Novitatem Generis Humani, Namely, the History of the Patres Familiarum, and the Original Plantation of the Continents and Islands of the World”, in The Primitive Origination of Mankind, Considered and Examined According to the Light of Nature, London: […] William Godbid, for William Shrowsbery, […], published 1677, →OCLC, section II, page 191:
      [T]he vvhole Country of Holland ſeems to be an Accretion partly by the Sea, partly by the River Rhine.
    • 1891, Thomas Hardy, chapter XIII, in Tess of the d’Urbervilles: A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented […], volume I, London: James R[ipley] Osgood, McIlvaine and Co., […], →OCLC, phase the second (Maiden No More), page 166:
      She had no fear of the shadows; her sole idea seemed to be to shun mankind—or rather that cold accretion called the world, which, so terrible in the mass, is so unformidable, even pitiable, in its units.
    1. (astrophysics) The formation of planets, stars, and other celestial bodies by the aggregating of matter drawn together by gravity; also, the growth of a celestial body through this process.
      • 2018 April 26, Alexandra Witze, “Earth may have been Formed by a Bunch of Tiny Space Pebbles”, in The Atlantic‎[2], Washington, D.C.: The Atlantic Monthly Group, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2023-01-28:
        This theory, known as pebble accretion, is reshaping how scientists think about the early solar system. […] "In many ways, pebble accretion is the most efficient way of adding mass to a body," says Lambrechts.
  5. (countable, chiefly figurative) Something gradually added to or growing on a thing externally.
    accretion of ice
    • a. 1677 (date written), Matthew Hale, “A Brief Consideration of the Hypotheses that Concern the Eternity of the World”, in The Primitive Origination of Mankind, Considered and Examined According to the Light of Nature, London: […] William Godbid, for William Shrowsbery, […], published 1677, →OCLC, section I, page 96:
      [T]hoſe places, vvhich vvere formerly filled vvith VVood, have buried the fallen Trees three, four, or five foot deep in the ground, by an accretion or cover of Earth, derived to them ſometimes by Alluvions or Floods, […]
    • 1855, George Cornewall Lewis, “History of Rome, from the Expulsion of the Kings to the Burning of the City by the Gauls (509–390 BCE)”, in An Inquiry into the Credibility of the Early Roman History […], volume 2, London: John W[illiam] Parker and Son, […], →OCLC, part I (From the Establishment of Consuls to the First Secession (509–494 b.c.)), § 17, page 75:
      If therefore it is admitted that a large part of the narrative of Dionysius [of Halicarnassus] is false, what good ground have we for believing the rest? Assuming however that we are to strip off all the subordinate parts of his narrative, as a later accretion, and to retain only a nucleus of the leading facts, do we find that these can be safely accepted, and that he is confirmed in them by the agreement of the other historians? So far is this from being the case, that the accounts transmitted to us differ widely in the material points of the transaction.
    1. (conservation science) A substance which has built up on the surface of an object, rather than become embedded in it.
      Accretions of dirt on clothing are often left in place by conservators because they can provide additional details about the artefact’s importance or history.
  6. (property law, uncountable) Increase in property by the addition of other property to it (for example, gain of land by alluvion (“the deposition of sediment by a river or sea”) or dereliction (“recession of water from the usual watermark”), or entitlement to the products of the property such as interest on money); or by the property owner acquiring another person’s ownership rights; accession; (countable) an instance of this.
    Synonyms: (archaic) accrual, accruer
  7. (inheritance law, uncountable) Increase of an inheritance to an heir or legatee due to the share of a co-heir or co-legatee being added to it, because the latter person is legally unable to inherit the share.

Derived terms

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Translations

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formation of celestial bodies by the aggregating of matter drawn together by gravity; growth of a celestial body through this process

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Compare “accretion, n.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, December 2023; “accretion, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Further reading

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Anagrams

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