Other forms: added, adding, adds
To add is to put numbers together for their total, or to put more of something in. Add them up, add salt, add to the problem.
In arithmetic it is the first operation anybody learns, and the order does not matter. In cooking it is the standard instruction: add the flour, add slowly. Add to means to increase something already there — that adds to the cost. Note added, additional, addition; and add up, which means both to total and, figuratively, to make sense: it does not add up.
1verbaddTo put numbers together for their total.
“Can you add these numbers in your head, or do you need a calculator?”
2verbputTo put more of something in.
“Add a little salt to the water before you cook the pasta.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
add is a putting together.
Latin addere is ad plus dare, to give. Date, donate and tradition come from the same giving, so to add is to give to.
Proto-Indo-European
*deh₃-
Latin
addō — add, give unto
Middle English
adden
English, today
add
From Middle English adden, from Latin addō (“add, give unto”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA