multiply

present singular third person multiplies · participle present multiplying · participle past multiplied · past multiplied

1. transitiveTo 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

   1786, Fisher Ames, Lucius Junius Brutus

   1 more example

   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.

   1843, Transactions of the Royal Entomological Society of London

2. transitivearithmeticTo perform multiplication on (a number).

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

   1 more example

   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.

   2025 April 3, Felix Salmon, “How to read the White House's tariff formula”, in Axios, archived from the original on 05 Apr 2025

3. intransitiveTo 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.

   2002 February 18, Molly Ivins, “Who Needs Breasts, Anyway?”, in TIME, archived from the original on 11 Feb 2002

4. intransitiveTo breed or propagate.

   1 more example

   [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.

   2013 July 20, “Welcome to the plastisphere”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8845, archived from the original on 08 Mar 2023

5. intransitivearithmeticTo perform multiplication.

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

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

   2022 August 7, Alec Wilkinson, “Could learning algebra in my 60s make me smarter?”, in The Guardian, archived from the original on 22 Mar 2023

6. raretransitiveTo 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.

   1983, Graham Flegg, Numbers, Dover, published 2002, →ISBN, page 154

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   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)

   1993, Edward T. Dowling, Schaum's Outline of Theory and Problems of Mathematical Methods for Business and Economics, →ISBN, page 14

plural multiplies

1. computerAn act or instance of multiplying.

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

   2004, C. K. Birdsall, A. B. Langdon, Plasma Physics via Computer Simulation, page 75

   1 more example

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

   1975, Byte, numbers 1-8, page 14

1. not comparableIn many or multiple ways.

1. not comparableHaving 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 […]

   1956, Official Gazette of the United States Patent Office, page 732