grow

To grow is to become bigger over time — a child, a plant, a business, a crowd. It is irregular: grow, grew, grown.

It works both ways, which is unusual and useful: things grow by themselves, and you can grow things — grow vegetables, grow a beard. From size it spreads to gradual change of any kind: grow tired, grow old, grow apart, and there it means become, taking an adjective. Note grow up, which means to become an adult and is also said sharply to somebody behaving childishly, and the difference between grown and grown-up as adjectives.

Phrases it lives in

• grow up — become an adult — or, said sharply, stop behaving like a child
• grow on somebody — become gradually likeable to somebody who disliked it at first