Meanings
- not comparableRelating to accretion; increasing, or adding to, by growth.
[…] Vegetables spring up from their Mother Earth; and we can no more discern their accretive Motion, then we can their most hidden cause.
1661, Joseph Glanvill, chapter 9, in The Vanity of Dogmatizing, London: Henry Eversden, page 812 more examples
There could be no rest-houses for revolt, no dividend of joy paid out. Its spirit was accretive, to endure as far as the senses would endure, and to use each advance as base for further adventure, deeper privation, sharper pain.
1927, T. E. Lawrence, chapter 19, in Revolt in the Desert, Garden City, NY: Garden City Publishing, pages 170–171The deal, expected to be completed by the summer, would be immediately accretive to cashflow and earnings per share while giving BP an extra 500,000 barrels per day.
2003 February 12, Terry Macalister, “BP looks to volatile nations”, in The Guardian
Synonyms & antonyms
adjectivegrowing by accretion
Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.
Origin
Translations
Latin accretivus
- accretivusrelating to accretion
Portuguese acretivo
- acretivorelating to accretion
Cite this entry
accretive. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/accretive
“accretive.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/accretive. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “accretive,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/accretive.
Source: accretive on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.