Skip to content
OneKitly

multiply

verbnounadverbadjectiveattested in dialogue

  • //ˈmʌltɪplaɪ//
  • //ˈmʌltɪpli//

To increase the amount, degree or number of (something).

verb

  1. 1

    To increase the amount, degree or number of (something).

    The motives to refuse obedience to government are many and strong ; impunity will multiply and enforce them

    It would indeed be easy to multiply modern authorities respecting locustal food; one more authority shall suffice, from which it will appear that the Arabs make a sort of locust bread.

  2. 2

    To perform multiplication on (a number).

    when you multiply 3 by 7, you get 21; he multiplied several numbers

    But that can be ignored, because the USTR has set ε at 4 and φ at 0.25, so when computed give an overall multiplier of 1 for the imports number. And multiplying by 1 makes no difference at all.

  3. 3

    To grow in number.

    I suspect that cancer doesn't give a rat's ass whether you have a positive mental attitude. It just sits in there multiplying away, whether you are admirably stoic or weeping and wailing.

  4. 4

    To breed or propagate.

    [The researchers] noticed many of their pieces of [plastic marine] debris sported surface pits around two microns across.[…]Closer examination showed that some of these pits did, indeed, contain bacteria, and that in several cases these bacteria were dividing and thus, by the perverse arithmetic of biological terminology, multiplying.

  5. 5

    To perform multiplication.

    He had been multiplying, but it occurred to him he needed to resolve the exponents, first.

    I could add and subtract and multiply and divide, but I entered the wilderness when words became equations.

  6. 6

    rareTo be a factor in a multiplication with (another factor).

    This follows a similar process, counters having to be removed and replaced at each stage of the remaining part of the calculation except the final one, where 2 multiplies 3 to give 6.

    Of all the possible combinations of factors above, only (2#92;cdot4)#43;(3#92;cdot5)#61;23. Carefully arranging the factors, therefore, to ensure that 2 multiplies 4 and 3 multiplies 5, we have 6x²#43;23x#43;20#61;(2x#43;5)(3x#43;4)

Etymology

From Old French multiplier, from Latin multiplicō, from multi (“many”) + plicō (“to fold”). The noun presumably derives from the verb.

noun

  1. 1

    An act or instance of multiplying.

    The extended instruction set may double the speed again if a lot of multiplies and divides are done.

    List the number of adds and multiplies for each of the forms (6) , (7), and (8).

adverb

  1. 1

    In many or multiple ways.

Etymology

Etymology tree English multiple Proto-Indo-European *leyg-der. Proto-Germanic *līkąder. Proto-Germanic *-līkaz Proto-Germanic *-ê Proto-Germanic *-līkê Proto-West Germanic *-līkē Old English -līċe Middle English -ly English -ly English multiply From multiple + -ly.

adjective

  1. 1

    Having more than one ply or layer; multilayered.

    2,751,151. MULTIPLY PAPER SACKS. […] A multiply paper bag […] the plies of the side flaps being stepped longitudinally of the bag […]

Etymology

multi- + ply

Forms

plural
multiplies
past tense
multiplied
past participle
multiplied
present participle
multiplying
third person singular
multiplies
The neighbouring pagesAlphabetical order follows the rules of the language, not byte values: an accent decides only between two otherwise identical words, and Spanish files Ñ as a letter of its own.

Lexical content from Wiktionary, under CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source entry · Data version 2026-08-23

Rank among the words of the OpenSubtitles 2018 corpus — film and television subtitles, so spoken rather than written usage (CC BY-SA 3.0).