addition

addition, accretion, increment, accession agree in denoting a thing that serves to increase another in size, amount, or content.

Addition implies union with something already existing as a whole or as a unit

{

he built an addition to his house last year

}

{

the office boy, a recent addition to the staff, was busy with the copying press— Archibald Marshall

}

Sometimes improvement rather than increase is stressed

{

the paintings were an addition to the room

}

Accretion implies attachment from the outside; it may be used of the process as well as of the thing added

{

a rolled snowball grows by accretion

}

It often suggests additions made to an original body over a considerable period of time

{

the professional historian, whose aim is exact truth, should brush aside the glittering accretions of fiction that have encrusted it— Grandgent

}

Nearly always it implies the addition of unessential or alien matter

{

all progress in literary style lies in the heroic resolve to cast aside accretions and exuberances— Ellis

}

Increment usually implies addition bit by bit in consecutive or serial order

{

the salaries are raised by annual increments

}

{

one more wave in the endless ebb and flow of action and reaction, the infinitesimal increments of which we call Progress— Lowes

}

Sometimes it signifies increase in value

{

benefited from an unearned increment in the value of his land resulting from growth of the city

}

Accession denotes something acquired that constitutes an addition to contents, holdings, or possessions

{

recent accessions to a library

}

{

the greatest accession of positive knowledge has come in our own time— lnge

}