escalate
pronunciation
How to pronounce escalate in British English:
UK [ˈeskəleɪt]
How to pronounce escalate in American English:
US [ˈeskəleɪt]
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- Verb:
- increase in extent or intensity
Word Origin
- escalate
- escalate: [20] Escalate is a back-formation from escalator [20], which was originally a tradename for a moving staircase first made in the USA around 1900 by the Otis Elevator Company. This in turn seems to have been coined (probably on the model of elevator) from escalade [16], a term in medieval warfare signifying the scaling of a fortified wall, which came via French and Spanish from medieval Latin scalāre, source of English scale ‘climb’. Escalate originally meant simply ‘ascend on an escalator’; the metaphorical sense ‘increase’ developed at the end of the 1950s.
- escalate (v.)
- 1922, "to use an escalator," back-formation from escalator, replacing earlier verb escalade (1801), from the noun escalade. Escalate came into general use with a figurative sense of "raise" from 1959 (intrans.), originally in reference to scenarios for possible nuclear war. Related: Escalated; escalating. Transitive figurative sense is by 1962.
Example
- 1. It does not want problems with japan to escalate .
- 2. The risk is that an unexpected incident could escalate as the hot line goes unanswered .
- 3. Neither side wants this to escalate .
- 4. Spilled blood could quickly escalate into an international crisis .
- 5. Concern about short-selling tends to escalate when markets decline .