Multiplier

How to spell multiplier

10 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce multiplier

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does multiplier mean?

1. nounA number, factor, or thing that multiplies or magnifies another quantity or effect.

Multiplier in a sentence

• In the calculation, the second figure acts as the multiplier.

• Economists argue that government spending has a multiplier effect on local jobs.

Where does multiplier come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word descends from the Latin verb multiplicare, meaning 'to increase' or literally 'to fold many times', which was built from multus, meaning 'many' or 'much', and plicare, meaning 'to fold'. The same plicare root sits quietly inside familiar words such as 'ply', 'complicate', and 'pliable', all of which carry the idea of folding or bending. English took the verb 'multiply' from Old French multiplier during the 1300s, and the agent noun 'multiplier', meaning the thing or factor that multiplies, followed soon after. In arithmetic it came to name the number by which another is multiplied, and in economics and finance it later named any factor that magnifies an effect. The spelling trap is the unstressed middle: the '-pli-' is easy to garble, and writers sometimes forget that it ends in '-ier' rather than '-yer'.

How the word is built

• multi- (many)
• plic/pli (fold)
• -er (agent: thing that does)