proliferate
verb
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Proliferate is a back-formation of proliferation. That means that proliferation came first (we borrowed it from French in the 18th century) and was later shortened to form the verb proliferate. Ultimately these terms come from Latin. The French adjective prolifère ("reproducing freely") comes from the Latin noun proles and the Latin combining form -fer. Proles means "offspring" or "descendants," and -fer means "bearing." Both of these Latin forms gave rise to numerous other English words. Prolific and proletarian ultimately come from proles; aquifer and words ending in -ferous have their roots in -fer.
Synonyms
Examples of proliferate in a Sentence
Joe Cermele, Field & Stream, 25 Apr. 2024
Such videos have proliferated in the last few years with the rise of injectable prescription drugs such as Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro, which many people are using to shed weight quickly.
—Andrea Chang, Los Angeles Times, 25 Apr. 2024
Like Kyle Shanahan’s offense has proliferated the league in recent seasons, with coaches being poached left and right in the process, the Niners’ football operations department has also been raided.
—Dieter Kurtenbach, The Mercury News, 23 Apr. 2024
But in the last decade or so, these beneficial little bugs have also been proliferating in the skin care world.
—Melanie Rud, SELF, 23 Apr. 2024
In that time, true-crime projects have proliferated in the wake of hits like The Jinx and contemporary docuseries Making a Murderer, the podcast Serial and based-on-a-true-story fictional series like The People v. O.J. Simpson and subsequent American Crime Story installments.
—Hilary Lewis, The Hollywood Reporter, 21 Apr. 2024
Such scandals, including at the collegiate level, have proliferated since the Supreme Court in 2018 cleared the way for states to legalize online sports betting.
—Khristopher J. Brooks, CBS News, 19 Apr. 2024
Wars are proliferating, and tensions between great powers are escalating.
—David Lammy, Foreign Affairs, 17 Apr. 2024
With the creation of the Laff Box, in the early ’50s, canned laughs proliferated to the point that even shows without the slightest pretense of having been performed for a live studio audience used laugh tracks.
—Jacob Stern, The Atlantic, 15 Apr. 2024
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'proliferate.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Dictionary Entries Near proliferate
Cite this Entry
“Proliferate.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/proliferate. Accessed 30 Apr. 2024.
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proliferate
verb
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proliferate
verb
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