Other forms: reduced, reducing, reduces
To reduce something is to make it smaller — the amount, the size, the price, the number. The shop reduces the bread at six o'clock, the doctor tells him to reduce the salt, the council wants to reduce traffic in the centre.
It takes by for the size of the change and to for the end state: reduce the price by half, reduce it to a fiver. Reduce somebody to something means bringing them to a low state — reduced to tears, reduced to begging, a whole street reduced to rubble — and that use lands hard. In cooking, to reduce a sauce is to boil it until some of the liquid goes and the flavour concentrates. In an argument, to reduce a case to one question is to strip it back to the essentials. The noun is reduction, and reduce sits a shade more formal than cut.
1verbreduceTo make something smaller in amount, size, number or price.
“They reduced the fare for anyone travelling before seven.”
2verbbringTo bring somebody or something to a worse or lower state.
“The fire reduced the warehouse to a shell.”
3verbboilTo boil a liquid so that it becomes thicker and stronger in flavour.
“Reduce the stock until it coats the back of a spoon.”
4verbsimplifyTo simplify something to its basic parts.
“He reduced the whole argument to a single sentence.”
Also accepted in games: decrease, lower
Reduce is Latin redūcō, made of re-, 'back', and dūcō, 'lead'. To reduce was to lead something back: back to a smaller state, back towards where it started. The same dūcō stands behind duke, the leader, and the root under it all is Proto-Indo-European *dewk-.
Proto-Indo-European
*dewk-
Latin
redūcō — reduce
Old French
reduire
Middle English
reducen
English, today
reduce
Built from
From Middle English reducen, from Old French reduire, from Latin redūcō (“reduce”); from re- (“back”) + dūcō (“lead”). See duke, and compare with redoubt.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA