accrescente

Accrescente is an Italian word that functions as an adjective and as the present participle of the verb accrescere, meaning to increase. It denotes something that grows or rises in size, amount, intensity, or rate. The term derives from Latin accrescere, with the suffix -ente forming a present participle or adjectival form.

In everyday and formal Italian, accrescente describes quantities or trends that become larger over time. It can modify nouns directly, as in una curva accrescente or una popolazione accrescente, and it can appear predicatively to indicate a state, for example i dati sono accrescente. More common synonyms for similar meanings include crescente, in aumento, or incremento when used as a noun.

As a present participle, accrescente can function attributively or as a complement of state, yielding expressions such as una velocità accrescente. In many contexts, however, speakers prefer the more straightforward term crescente to convey a trend of growth, especially in statistical or descriptive passages.

In music and other disciplines, accrescente is less common in contemporary usage. In music, the standard term for a gradual increase in volume is crescendo; accrescendo may appear in historical writings or didactic texts but is not the common notational marking today.

See also: accrescere, accrescimento, crescente.