Exponentially

How to spell exponentially

13 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce exponentially

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does exponentially mean?

1. adverbIn a way that increases more and more rapidly, in proportion to the growing total.

Exponentially in a sentence

• The number of subscribers grew exponentially after the app went viral.

• Repair costs rose exponentially as the old machinery kept failing.

Where does exponentially come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This adverb traces back to the Latin verb exponere, meaning 'to set forth' or 'to put out', built from ex- 'out' and ponere 'to place'. In Latin the participle gave rise to expositus, and the same root underlies familiar words such as 'expose' and 'exponent'. Mathematicians of the late 1500s adopted 'exponent' for the small raised number that 'sets forth' how many times a quantity is multiplied by itself, and from this the adjective 'exponential' was coined in the 1700s to describe growth that accelerates as it increases. The adverb 'exponentially' followed, and in modern everyday English it loosely means 'very rapidly' or 'enormously', though strictly it describes growth proportional to its own current size. The spelling trap lives in the unstressed middle: the 'ponent' section hides a schwa, and writers often forget that 'exponent' sits inside it.

How the word is built

• ex- (out)
• ponent (from Latin ponere: to place, set forth)
• -ial (adjective suffix)
• -ly (adverb suffix)