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proliferation

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
See also: prolifération

English

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Etymology

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Borrowed from French prolifération.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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proliferation (countable and uncountable, plural proliferations)

  1. (uncountable) The process by which an organism produces others of its kind; breeding, propagation, procreation, reproduction.
  2. (countable) The act of increasing, rising, or proliferating; augmentation, amplification, enlargement, escalation, aggrandizement.
    • 2013 July 19, Mark Tran, “Denied an education by war”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 6, page 1:
      One particularly damaging, but often ignored, effect of conflict on education is the proliferation of attacks on schools […] as children, teachers or school buildings become the targets of attacks. Parents fear sending their children to school. Girls are particularly vulnerable to sexual violence.
    • 2023 March 8, Gareth Dennis, “The Reshaping of things to come...”, in RAIL, number 978, page 48:
      Internationally, the shipping container had already proven its worth, and by the early 1960s battles were being fought over what their standardised dimensions would be (their expected proliferation was not in question).
    1. (uncountable) In paticular, the spread (proliferating) of biochemical, nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction to countries not originally involved in developing them.
      • 1997 11, William J. Perry, Proliferation: Threat and Response, DIANE Publishing, →ISBN, page 47:
        ... to combat proliferation by assisting them in gaining and assuring greater control over their dual-use equipment and technology. States that gain weapons of mass destruction are able to pose a significant military threat to the […]
      • 1996, Air University (U.S.). Press, Fighting Proliferation: New Concerns for the Nineties:
        [Efforts] to fight proliferation will require more than just new targets for collection; intelligence analysis will also have to change. In particular, to support policymakers looking for opportunities to disrupt, slow, or stop a […]
  3. (countable) The result of building up; buildup, accretion.

Derived terms

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Translations

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