CUMULATIVE • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Cumulative

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/kjˈumjələtɪv/ Listen

adjective

Cumulative adj.

1.

Composed of parts in a heap; forming a mass; aggregated. "As for knowledge which man receiveth by teaching, it is cumulative, not original."

2.

Augmenting, gaining, or giving force, by successive additions; as, a cumulative argument, i. e., one whose force increases as the statement proceeds. "The argument... is in very truth not logical and single, but moral and cumulative."

3.

(Law)

(a)

Tending to prove the same point to which other evidence has been offered; said of evidence.

(b)

Given by same testator to the same legatee; said of a legacy.

Cumulative action (Med.), that action of certain drugs, by virtue of which they produce, when administered in small doses repeated at considerable intervals, the same effect as if given in a single large dose.

Cumulative poison, a poison the action of which is cumulative.

Cumulative vote or Cumulative system of voting (Politics), that system which allows to each voter as many votes as there are persons to be voted for, and permits him to accumulate these votes upon one person, or to distribute them among the candidates as he pleases.

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Etymology of 'Cumulative'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Cumulative" Quotes from Famous Books

... them. Notwithstanding Uncle Toby and Maria, who will venture to say that Sterne was noble or virtuous, when he looks over the whole that he has written? But in Shakspere there is no suspicion of a cloven foot. Everywhere he is on the side of virtue and of truth. Many small arguments, with great cumulative force, might be adduced to ...

— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald

... and private works in this country, and the cumulative testimony of English and French engineers, have demonstrated that the only tile which it is economical to use, is the best that can be found, and that the best,—much the best—thus far invented, is the "pipe, or round tile, and collar,"—and these ...

— Draining for Profit, and Draining for Health • George E. Waring

... on local and educational matters, spread more and more, Wyoming, Colorado, Idaho, and Utah women voted upon exactly the same terms as men, In Idaho women sat in the legislature. There was much agitation for minority representation. Illinois set an example by the experiment of cumulative voting in the election of lower house members ...

— History of the United States, Volume 5 • E. Benjamin Andrews

... a sweetheart should do, yet from first to last she had repressed all recognition of the true nature of the thread which drew them together, blinding herself to its meaning and only natural tendency, and appearing to dread his announcement of them. The present seemed enough for her without cumulative hope: usually, even if love is in itself an end, it must be regarded as ...

— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy

... report. He would not await the positive information that must soon be given out, but applied strong language to acts not yet precisely ascertained; and he mingled with the "Chesapeake" affair other very real, but different and minor, subjects of complaint, seemingly with a view to cumulative effect. He thus made the mistake of encumbering with extraneous or needless details a subject which required separate, undivided, and lucid insistence; while Canning found an opportunity, particularly congenial to his temperament, to escape ...

— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan

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