Other forms: growths
Growth is an increase in size, number or strength. Rapid growth, economic growth, a growth spurt.
Compound growth is the fact people most consistently underestimate: something rising a few per cent a year doubles within a working lifetime. In medicine a growth is a lump, and the word is used when nobody yet knows what kind. Note grow plus the -th that makes nouns.
1noungrowthAn increase in size, number or strength.
“The children's growth is checked every year by the school nurse.”
2nounlumpA lump in the body.
“The doctor found a small growth on her neck and sent her for tests.”
growth is an increase.
Grow plus -th, the ending that makes nouns from verbs, as in warmth and depth.
Proto-Indo-European
*gʰreh₁- — to grow, become green
Proto-Germanic
*grōaną — to grow, grow green
Proto-West Germanic
*grōan
Old English
grōwan — to grow, increase, flourish, germinate
Middle English
growen
English
grow
English, today
growth
From grow + th. Compare Old Frisian grēd "meadow, pasture"; > frr greyde (“growth, pasture”), Middle High German gruote, gruot (“greens, fresh growth, shoot”), Old Norse gróðr "growth, crop"; > Faroese grøði, Danish grøde (“fruits”), Swedish gröda (“crop, harvest”). More at grow. grow comes from Middle English growen, from Old English grōwan (“to grow, increase, flourish, germinate”), from Proto-West Germanic grōan, from Proto-Germanic grōaną (“to grow, grow green”), from Proto-Indo-European gʰreh₁- (“to grow, become green”). 2 Cognate with Dutch groeien (“to grow”), German Low German grojen (“to green; thrive; take hold; flourish”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk and Swedish gro (“to grow”), Faroese grógva (“to grow”), Icelandic gróa (“to grow”); also Latin grāmen (“grass, turf; herb, plant”), herba (“grass, herbage; weeds; plant”), Ukrainian гря́ний (“green”). Related to growth, grass, green.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA