Accretion
/əˈkriːʃn/noun
The process of growing or increasing by gradually adding more.
The accretion of dust led to a significant increase in the room's cleaning needs.
Often appears as...
- accretion of dust
- accretion of knowledge
noun
In finance, the growth in value of a final fund, because of the reinvestment of interest and capital gains.
Over time, the accretion of the pension plan's assets through interest and capital gains was significant.
Often appears as...
- accretion of interest
- accretion of capital gains
Usage tips
Formal
Technical
noun
In sciences (like geology, astronomy), the process in which material, often in the form of small particles, accumulates onto a mass.
Planetary scientists believe that the Earth was formed by the accretion of small particles over millions of years.
Often appears as...
- accretion of particles
- accretion of matter
Usage tips
Formal
Technical
noun
In law, the addition of a lesser thing to a greater, specifically in property law.
The plot of land increased by accretion when the river changed its course.
Often appears as...
- accretion of land
- accretion of property
Usage tips
Formal
Technical
noun
The process of growing or increasing by gradually adding more.
The accretion of dust led to a significant increase in the room's cleaning needs.
Often appears as...
- accretion of dust
- accretion of knowledge
noun
In finance, the growth in value of a final fund, because of the reinvestment of interest and capital gains.
Over time, the accretion of the pension plan's assets through interest and capital gains was significant.
Often appears as...
- accretion of interest
- accretion of capital gains
Usage tips
Formal
Technical
noun
In sciences (like geology, astronomy), the process in which material, often in the form of small particles, accumulates onto a mass.
Planetary scientists believe that the Earth was formed by the accretion of small particles over millions of years.
Often appears as...
- accretion of particles
- accretion of matter
Usage tips
Formal
Technical
noun
In law, the addition of a lesser thing to a greater, specifically in property law.
The plot of land increased by accretion when the river changed its course.
Often appears as...
- accretion of land
- accretion of property
Usage tips
Formal
Technical
Definition 1 of 4
Pro Tip 1/2Gradual Addition
Accretion emphasizes a slow and gradual build-up, not a sudden increase.
The library's collection expanded through the accretion of new books over time.
Pro Tip 2/2Positive or Neutral
'Accretion' usually has a neutral or positive connotation, suggesting beneficial or natural growth.
His knowledge of the subject showed evident accretion after hours of study.
Compare with
accumulateadditionaggregateaugmentexpansiongathergrowthincrease
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Video examples
How radio telescopes...
is a supermassive black hole. Now, black holes are invisible. That's why they're called that. All you can see is the deflection of the light around them, and occasionally, when a star or a cloud of gas comes into their orbit, it is ripped apart by tidal forces, forming what we call an accretion disk.
Video examples
How can sculptures save...
connected if they're in trouble you're in trouble it's time for artistic synergistic life support living sea sculptures using bio Rock mineral accretion technology by running low voltage current through seawater the limestone minerals abundant in the ocean deposit onto metal and the resulting
Video examples
Black Holes 101 PIPE...
and has a diameter about the distance between the earth and our sun. Because black holes are invisible, the only way for scientists to detect and study them is to observe their effect on nearby matter. This includes accretion disks, a disk of particles that form when gases and dust
Video examples
Jedidah Isler: How I...
The dinner plate by which material falls onto the black hole is called the accretion disc, shown here in blue. Some of that material is slingshotted around the black hole and accelerated to insanely high speeds in the jet, shown here in white. Although the blazar system is rare,
Video examples
Rachel Armstrong:...
An accretion itself is a huge sink of carbon dioxide. Also it will attract the local marine ecology, who will find their own ecological niches within this architecture. So, this is really interesting. Now we have an architecture that connects a city to the natural world
Video examples
LA92 Panel - Live PIPE...
success of police unions to make this impenetrable ideal of the police officer is the the only thing standing between you and chaos and and people have reacted accordingly giving them more and more power as we see it's been an accretion of power in police unions over
Video examples
The most groundbreaking...
overrule empirical, experimental evidence. His vision, uncluttered by speculation or rationalization, went deep. Steno had seen how gallstones form in wet organs by accretion. They obeyed molding principles he knew from the goldsmith trade,
Video examples
Could we steal the power...
They’d swarm in an orbit around a black hole, perhaps on the plane of its accretion disk, but farther out. These devices could use mirror-like panels to transmit the collected energy to a powerplant, or a battery for storage.
Video examples
This is what democracy...
We have to disrupt our lives so that we can disrupt the amoral accretion of power by those who would betray our values. We and we the people must raise justice up and must bring peace to our nation
Video examples
Maps that show us who we...
when she "The accretion of incremental, imperceptible changes which can constitute progress and which render our era dramatically different from the past" -- the past was much more stable --
Video examples
How radio telescopes...
is a supermassive black hole. Now, black holes are invisible. That's why they're called that. All you can see is the deflection of the light around them, and occasionally, when a star or a cloud of gas comes into their orbit, it is ripped apart by tidal forces, forming what we call an accretion disk.
Video examples
How can sculptures save...
connected if they're in trouble you're in trouble it's time for artistic synergistic life support living sea sculptures using bio Rock mineral accretion technology by running low voltage current through seawater the limestone minerals abundant in the ocean deposit onto metal and the resulting
Video examples
Black Holes 101 PIPE...
and has a diameter about the distance between the earth and our sun. Because black holes are invisible, the only way for scientists to detect and study them is to observe their effect on nearby matter. This includes accretion disks, a disk of particles that form when gases and dust
Video examples
Jedidah Isler: How I...
The dinner plate by which material falls onto the black hole is called the accretion disc, shown here in blue. Some of that material is slingshotted around the black hole and accelerated to insanely high speeds in the jet, shown here in white. Although the blazar system is rare,
Video examples
Rachel Armstrong:...
An accretion itself is a huge sink of carbon dioxide. Also it will attract the local marine ecology, who will find their own ecological niches within this architecture. So, this is really interesting. Now we have an architecture that connects a city to the natural world
Video examples
LA92 Panel - Live PIPE...
success of police unions to make this impenetrable ideal of the police officer is the the only thing standing between you and chaos and and people have reacted accordingly giving them more and more power as we see it's been an accretion of power in police unions over
Video examples
The most groundbreaking...
overrule empirical, experimental evidence. His vision, uncluttered by speculation or rationalization, went deep. Steno had seen how gallstones form in wet organs by accretion. They obeyed molding principles he knew from the goldsmith trade,
Video examples
Could we steal the power...
They’d swarm in an orbit around a black hole, perhaps on the plane of its accretion disk, but farther out. These devices could use mirror-like panels to transmit the collected energy to a powerplant, or a battery for storage.
Video examples
This is what democracy...
We have to disrupt our lives so that we can disrupt the amoral accretion of power by those who would betray our values. We and we the people must raise justice up and must bring peace to our nation
Video examples
Maps that show us who we...
when she "The accretion of incremental, imperceptible changes which can constitute progress and which render our era dramatically different from the past" -- the past was much more stable --
Example 1 of 10
Quote examples
Pat Buchanan
American Journalist
The bipolar world of the Cold War is history. The new world order, however, is not the One World dreamed of by Wilsonian idealists. It is a Balkanizing world where race, tribe, culture and creed matter most, and democracy is seen not as an end in itself but as a means to an end - the accretion of power by one's own kind to achieve one's own dreams.
Quote examples
John Burroughs
American Author
The phoebe-bird is a wise architect and perhaps enjoys as great an immunity from danger, both in its person and its nest, as any other bird. Its modest ashen-gray suit is the color of the rocks where it builds, and the moss of which it makes such free use gives to its nest the look of a natural growth or accretion.
Quote examples
George Saunders
American Writer
I think fiction isn't so good at being for or against things in general - the rhetorical argument a short story can make is only actualized by the accretion of particular details, and the specificity of these details renders whatever conclusions the story reaches invalid for wider application.
Quote examples
James Fallows
American Journalist
As many people have chronicled, the decision to fight in Vietnam was a years-long accretion of step-by-step choices, each of which could be rationalized at the time. Invading Iraq was an unforced, unnecessary decision to risk everything on a 'war of choice' whose costs we are still paying.
Quote examples
Harry Shearer
American Actor
Behind the ambitious, creative talent that is Hollywood lies a darker side of the entertainment industry little appreciated by the ordinary moviegoer. It's an opaque world of film financing, revenue accretion, and minimal profit share.
Quote examples
Pico Iyer
Indian Writer
Abjure all accretions and turn off the lights. Put on some music - Leonard Cohen, say, perhaps his 'Various Positions' - and let your mind cool down. Soon you'll forget there's a word called 'stress.
Quote examples
Walt Whitman
American Poet
Viewed freely, the English language is the accretion and growth of every dialect, race, and range of time, and is both the free and compacted composition of all.
Quote examples
Richard Le Gallienne
English Poet
All myths that are something more than fancies gain rather than lose in value with time, by reason of the accretions of human experience.
Quote examples
Alexander Graham Bell
Scottish Inventor
The most successful men in the end are those whose success is the result of steady accretion.
Quote examples
Jonas Salk
American Scientist
Nothing happens quite by chance. It's a question of accretion of information and experience.
Quote examples
Pat Buchanan
American Journalist
The bipolar world of the Cold War is history. The new world order, however, is not the One World dreamed of by Wilsonian idealists. It is a Balkanizing world where race, tribe, culture and creed matter most, and democracy is seen not as an end in itself but as a means to an end - the accretion of power by one's own kind to achieve one's own dreams.
Quote examples
John Burroughs
American Author
The phoebe-bird is a wise architect and perhaps enjoys as great an immunity from danger, both in its person and its nest, as any other bird. Its modest ashen-gray suit is the color of the rocks where it builds, and the moss of which it makes such free use gives to its nest the look of a natural growth or accretion.
Quote examples
George Saunders
American Writer
I think fiction isn't so good at being for or against things in general - the rhetorical argument a short story can make is only actualized by the accretion of particular details, and the specificity of these details renders whatever conclusions the story reaches invalid for wider application.
Quote examples
James Fallows
American Journalist
As many people have chronicled, the decision to fight in Vietnam was a years-long accretion of step-by-step choices, each of which could be rationalized at the time. Invading Iraq was an unforced, unnecessary decision to risk everything on a 'war of choice' whose costs we are still paying.
Quote examples
Harry Shearer
American Actor
Behind the ambitious, creative talent that is Hollywood lies a darker side of the entertainment industry little appreciated by the ordinary moviegoer. It's an opaque world of film financing, revenue accretion, and minimal profit share.
Quote examples
Pico Iyer
Indian Writer
Abjure all accretions and turn off the lights. Put on some music - Leonard Cohen, say, perhaps his 'Various Positions' - and let your mind cool down. Soon you'll forget there's a word called 'stress.
Quote examples
Walt Whitman
American Poet
Viewed freely, the English language is the accretion and growth of every dialect, race, and range of time, and is both the free and compacted composition of all.
Quote examples
Richard Le Gallienne
English Poet
All myths that are something more than fancies gain rather than lose in value with time, by reason of the accretions of human experience.
Quote examples
Alexander Graham Bell
Scottish Inventor
The most successful men in the end are those whose success is the result of steady accretion.
Quote examples
Jonas Salk
American Scientist
Nothing happens quite by chance. It's a question of accretion of information and experience.
Example 1 of 10
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