SYNONYMS AND RELATED EXPRESSIONS
cumulative
adjective
Increasing or developing as successive additions or effects build on one another.
Local English device voice, when available. This is not a recorded dictionary pronunciation.
Building through additions
Closest synonyms
Related words and expressions
These extend or explain the idea and may require a different sentence structure.
Usage distinction
Return to topAdditive concerns combining contributions; cumulative emphasizes the total built up over successive additions.
CHECK THE MEANING IN CONTEXT
See cumulative in use
The cumulative effect of several small delays pushed the completion date back a week.
Over several afternoons, the cumulative effect of small sorting improvements became visible in the shop's records as fewer orders needed staff help.
Compare an alternative with the original word in each passage. Shared meanings do not make every pair interchangeable.
Synonym reference scope and sources
The groups distinguish the senses selected for this study entry. Closest synonyms and broader related expressions have separate labels. The listed sources support lexical selection; not every phrase is a direct quotation from a source.
How the synonym reference was prepared / WordNet 3.0 license