Defn: To augment or make greater in bulk, quantity, extent, value, or amount, etc.; to add to; to extend; to lengthen; to enhance; to aggravate; as, to increase one's possessions, influence. I will increase the famine. Ezek. v. 16. Make denials Increase your services. Shak.
INCREASE
In"crease, n. Etym: [OE. encres, encresse. See Increase, v. i.]
1. Addition or enlargement in size, extent, quantity, number, intensity, value, substance, etc.; augmentation; growth. As if increase of appetite had grown By what if fed on. Shak. For things of tender kind for pleasure made Shoot up with swift increase, and sudden are decay'd. Dryden.
2. That which is added to the original stock by augmentation or growth; produce; profit; interest. Take thou no usury of him, or increase. Lev. xxv. 36. Let them not live to taste this land's increase. Shak.
3. Progeny; issue; offspring. All the increase of thy house shall die in the flower of their age. 1 Sam. ii. 33.
4. Generation. [Obs.] "Organs of increase." Shak.
5. (Astron.)
Defn: The period of increasing light, or luminous phase; the waxing; — said of the moon. Seeds, hair, nails, hedges, and herbs will grow soonest if set or cut in the increase of the moon. Bacon. Increase twist, the twixt of a rifle groove in which the angle of twist increases from the breech to the muzzle.
Syn. — Enlargement; extension; growth; development; increment; addition; accession; production.
INCREASEFUL
In*crease"ful, a.