Multiply Meaning
/ˈmʌltɪplaɪ/Definition, CEFR level B1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
verbTo increase the amount, degree or number of (something).
verbTo perform multiplication on (a number).
Sentence Examples
The only way on Earth to multiply happiness is to divide it.
This new investment will multiply our profit.
The children are already learning to multiply and divide.
CEFR Practice Quiz
Under warm and wet conditions, bacteria ____ rapidly in the petri dish.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
If you ____ five by six, the total result is thirty, which is a very simple mathematical calculation that every student should know.
Word Origin & History
From Old French multiplier, from Latin multiplicō, from multi (“many”) + plicō (“to fold”). The noun presumably derives from the verb.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"The motives to refuse obedience to government are many and strong ; impunity will multiply and enforce them"
— 1786, Fisher Ames, Lucius Junius Brutus:
"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:
"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:
"[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:
"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:
Explore More B1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
Under warm and wet conditions, bacteria ____ rapidly in the petri dish.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
If you ____ five by six, the total result is thirty, which is a very simple mathematical calculation that every student should know.