proliferation

Borrowed from French prolifération.

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA^(key): /pɹəˌlɪf.əˈɹeɪ.ʃən/

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• (General Australian) IPA^(key): /pɹəˌlɪf.əˈɹæɪ.ʃən/
• Rhymes: -eɪʃən

proliferation (countable and uncountable, plural proliferations)

1. (uncountable) The process by which an organism produces others of its kind; breeding, propagation, procreation, reproduction.
2. (countable) The act of increasing or rising; augmentation, amplification, enlargement, escalation, aggrandizement.
   • 2013 July 19, Mark Tran, “Denied an education by war”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 6, page 1:

     One particularly damaging, but often ignored, effect of conflict on education is the proliferation of attacks on schools […] as children, teachers or school buildings become the targets of attacks. Parents fear sending their children to school. Girls are particularly vulnerable to sexual violence.

   • 2023 March 8, Gareth Dennis, “The Reshaping of things to come...”, in RAIL, number 978, page 48:

     Internationally, the shipping container had already proven its worth, and by the early 1960s battles were being fought over what their standardised dimensions would be (their expected proliferation was not in question).

3. (countable) The result of building up; buildup, accretion.
4. (Can we verify⁽⁺⁾ this sense?) (uncountable) The spread of biochemical, nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction to countries not originally involved in developing them.