Other forms: accumulated, accumulating, accumulates
To accumulate is to pile up little by little over time. Accumulate savings, dust accumulates, accumulated debt.
The gradualness is the point: things accumulate rather than arriving, which is why the word suits dust, savings, evidence and interest. Accumulated interest is what makes compound growth work. It is both transitive and not — you accumulate savings and dust accumulates. Note accumulation; and that the Latin means to heap up, from cumulus, a heap, which also names the piled-up cloud.
1verbaccumulateTo pile up little by little over time.
“Dust had accumulated on the shelves of the empty house over the years.”
accumulate is a gradual piling up.
Also accepted in games: build up
Latin accumulare is ad plus cumulare, to heap, from cumulus, a heap. Cumulus cloud and cumulative come from the same heap.
Latin
accumulātus
Middle English
accumylaten
English, today
accumulate
Built from
From Middle English accumylaten, from Latin accumulātus. First attested c. 1487; from Middle English accumylaten, Latin accumulātus, perfect passive participle of accumulō (“to amass, pile up”) (see -ate and -ate), formed from ad (“to, towards, at”) + cumulō (“to heap”), from cumulus (“a heap”) + -ō. Cognate with French accumuler.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA