proliferate

From Latin proles (“offspring”) + ferre (“to bear”) +‎ -ate.

• IPA^(key): /pɹəˈlɪf.əɹ.eɪt/

proliferate (third-person singular simple present proliferates, present participle proliferating, simple past and past participle proliferated)

1. (transitive, intransitive) To increase in number or spread rapidly; to multiply.

   The flowers proliferated rapidly all spring.

   • 2006, Edwin Black, chapter 2, in Internal Combustion‎:

     But through the oligopoly, charcoal fuel proliferated throughout London's trades and industries.  By the 1200s, brewers and bakers, tilemakers, glassblowers, pottery producers, and a range of other craftsmen all became hour-to-hour consumers of charcoal.

• proliferation
• proliferative
• proliferous
• prolific

• proliferate in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• proliferate in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

proliferate

1. second-person plural present indicative of proliferare
2. second-person plural imperative of proliferare
3. feminine plural of proliferato

• petrolifera