exponentially
- 01 C1 Advanced
describes a quantity that grows at a rate that keeps getting faster.
relating to an increase expressed by an exponential function, where the rate of change is proportional to the function's current value.
Simple“The bacteria in the lab dish grew exponentially every hour.”
In context“In the early stages of the epidemic, the number of new infections increased exponentially before public health interventions began to take effect.”
UsageCommonly modifies verbs of growth like 'increase', 'grow', or 'expand'.
SynonymsAntonyms - 02 C1 Advanced
used to say that something is increasing by a very large amount in a short time.
used in a non-technical sense to denote extremely rapid or vast increases in scale or intensity.
Simple“The popularity of the new app grew exponentially after the celebrity's post.”
In context“The complexity of the project has increased exponentially since we added the third phase to the original plan.”
Teacher's tipStrict grammarians and scientists often dislike this informal use, preferring 'rapidly' unless the growth truly follows a mathematical curve.
PitfallThe price increased exponentially by two percent. The price increased steadily by two percent.Do not use 'exponentially' for a fixed, slow increase; it implies the speed of growth itself is accelerating.
Synonyms
Usage exponentially increase
“Solar storm particle flux is usually dominated by lower-energy protons, with high-energy ones exponentially rarer, which is why the vest performed as it did.”
“The number of papers indexed in the databases Scopus and Web of Science, for example, has recently been increasing exponentially , at a rate of 5.6 percent per year.”
From exponential + -ly.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.