advance

UK/ədˈvɑːns/US/ədˈvæns/

verbB26 meanings Very common — you will meet it every day · #1,782 of 15,258leans written

Other forms: advanced, advancing, advances

To advance is to move forward. The army advances across open ground, the queue advances one shuffling step, a glacier advances a few metres a year and nobody sees it happen.

Nothing has to be moving on legs. Medicine advances, technology advances, and you can advance an argument, which means put it forward for other people to consider. Money gets advanced too: the company advanced him a month's pay, and a novelist's advance is the money paid before the book exists. As a noun it means progress — advances in battery design — while in the plural, make advances to someone means an approach nobody asked for. Before a noun it means beforehand: advance booking, advance warning, in advance. Careful with advanced, which is a different idea altogether: an advanced course is a hard one, not an early one.

Definitions of advance

1verbadvanceTo move forward.B2~28%
“The line of walkers advanced slowly up the ridge.”
synonyms: proceed, press on
2verbhelpTo make progress, or to help something make progress.B2~4%
“No single drug has advanced the treatment of the disease this far.”
3verbpayTo pay money before it is due.B2~4%
“The firm advanced her three weeks' wages to cover the move.”
4verbputTo put an idea forward for other people to consider.B2~4%
“He advanced a theory that nobody in the room believed for a second.”
5nounmovementProgress, or a forward movement.B2~21%
“Advances in battery design have brought the price down every year.”
6adjectivedoneDone or given ahead of time. Used before a noun.B2~39%
“There was no advance warning of the strike.”

Shares are an estimate: a language model read 28 sentences found in the wild and placed 28 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.

Phrases it lives in

in advance — before the time something happens

Where it comes from

Advance came through Anglo-Norman avancier from Vulgar Latin abanteāre, built on Latin ab ante, from before. The d in the middle is a fake: scribes added it because they assumed the word must have started with the Latin prefix ad-, and the spelling stuck.

Middle English
avauncen
English, today
advance

Built from

ante · Latin — before

From Middle English avauncen. From Middle English avauncen, avancen, borrowed from Anglo-Norman avancier, from Vulgar Latin abanteāre, from Latin ab ante, from Latin ab + ante (“before”). ⟨d⟩ added in analogy to Latin ad- (cf. Middle French advancer). Compare avaunt.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Man Called Ove, Ways of Moving

First appears in chapter 5 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

advance in the wild

The batter-runner himself may attempt to advance beyond first base, at his own risk.
Base on balls
An attempt to advance an additional base beyond the base awarded might occur when ball four is a passed ball or a wild pitch.
Base on balls
An advance-fee scam is a form of fraud and is a common scam.
Advance-fee scam
A living will is one form of advance directive, leaving instructions for treatment.
Advance healthcare directive
In naval warfare the van is the advance ship, or fleet, that will make the initial engagement with an enemy fleet.
Vanguard

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

Definitions of advance

1verbadvanceTo move forward.B2~28%

“The line of walkers advanced slowly up the ridge.”

synonyms: proceed, press on

2verbhelpTo make progress, or to help something make progress.B2~4%

“No single drug has advanced the treatment of the disease this far.”

3verbpayTo pay money before it is due.B2~4%

“The firm advanced her three weeks' wages to cover the move.”

4verbputTo put an idea forward for other people to consider.B2~4%

“He advanced a theory that nobody in the room believed for a second.”

5nounmovementProgress, or a forward movement.B2~21%

“Advances in battery design have brought the price down every year.”

6adjectivedoneDone or given ahead of time. Used before a noun.B2~39%

“There was no advance warning of the strike.”

Shares are an estimate: a language model read 28 sentences found in the wild and placed 28 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.