Cumulative

How to spell cumulative

10 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce cumulative

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does cumulative mean?

1. adjectiveIncreasing or growing by successive additions, so that each part adds to the total effect.

Cumulative in a sentence

• The cumulative effect of years of saving left her with a comfortable pension.

• Each late payment adds a charge, and the cumulative cost soon became unmanageable.

Where does cumulative come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word traces back to the Latin noun cumulus, meaning 'a heap, a mound, or a pile', the same word that now names the puffy, heaped-up cumulus cloud. From it the Romans formed the verb cumulare, 'to pile up' or 'to accumulate', and the later adjective cumulativus described something built up in successive layers. English adopted the term in the early 1600s, originally in legal and accounting contexts where amounts were added together over time. The sense has stayed remarkably close to its root ever since: anything cumulative is something that grows by being heaped onto what came before. The close relative 'accumulate' shares the very same cumulus core, and remembering that single 'l' in the heap-word cumulus helps fix the single 'l' in cumulative.

How the word is built

• cumul- (from Latin cumulus: a heap or pile)
• -ative (adjective suffix meaning 'tending to')