Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Increasing or enlarging by successive addition.
  • adjective Acquired by or resulting from accumulation.
  • adjective Of or relating to interest or a dividend that is added to the next payment if not paid when due.
  • adjective Supporting the same point as earlier evidence.
  • adjective Imposed with greater severity upon a repeat offender.
  • adjective Following successively; consecutive.
  • adjective Of or relating to the total observed frequency of data, or the probability of a random variable, that is less than or equal to a specified value.
  • adjective Of or relating to experimental error that increases in magnitude with each successive measurement.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Adding to; increasing the mass, weight, number, extent, amount, or force of (things of the same kind): as, cumulative materials; cumulative arguments or testimony. See below.
  • Increasing by successive additions: as, the cumulative action of a force.
  • Composed of aggregated parts; composite; brought together by degrees.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Composed of parts in a heap; forming a mass; aggregated.
  • adjective Augmenting, gaining, or giving force, by successive additions.
  • adjective Tending to prove the same point to which other evidence has been offered; -- said of evidence.
  • adjective Given by same testator to the same legatee; -- said of a legacy.
  • adjective (Med.) that action of certain drugs, by virtue of which they produce, when administered in small doses repeated at considerable intervals, the same effect as if given in a single large dose.
  • adjective a poison the action of which is cumulative.
  • adjective (Politics) that system which allows to each voter as many votes as there are persons to be voted for, and permits him to accumulate these votes upon one person, or to distribute them among the candidates as he pleases.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Incorporating all data up to the present
  • adjective That is formed by accumulation of successive additions
  • adjective That tends to accumulate
  • adjective finance Having priority rights to receive a dividend that accrue until paid

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective increasing by successive addition

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

This definition is lacking an etymology or has an incomplete etymology. You can help Wiktionary by giving it a proper etymology.

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Examples

Comments

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  • "“I’m not a sanctimonious reader,” she says, “but I think there’s a cumulative beauty that can be achieved in books that you can’t really get on the internet.”"

    Source: What does it mean for a journalist today to be a Serious Reader?

    January 22, 2018