Definition of "increment"

the seminary that furnisheth matter for the formation and increment of animal and vegetable bodies

1695, John Woodward, “(please specify the page)”, in An Essay toward a Natural History of the Earth: And Terrestrial Bodies, Especially Minerals: […], London: […] Ric[hard] Wilkin […]

A nation, to be great, ought to be compressed in its increment by nations more civilized than itself.

1835, Samuel Taylor Coleridge (d. 1834), Specimens of the Table Talk

In the third place, the superelevation and alignment of the track, theoretically calculated for speeds of 70 to 75 m.p.h., was adequate for the 80 to 85 m.p.h. or so normally attained as maxima over the G.N. main line; but nothing whatever had been done to prepare it for the enormous increment over these figures that this run was to produce.

1941 June, Cecil J. Allen, “British Locomotive Practice and Performance”, in Railway Maagazine, page 263

The others will return at night, [...] pushing their experiments and nudging their projects toward completion in small, painful increments.

2020, Brandon Taylor, Real Life, Daunt Books Originals, page 90

... any given value just before observing, the actual pressures must as frequently be incremented as decremented, both in the "on" and the "off" series.

1890, H. E. J. G. Du Bois, “On Magnetic Circuits”, in Philosophical magazine, page 346

public sector professional services recruitment, has seen a strong seasonal upturn which has incremented year on year since 2002 by an average of 12%.

2007 January 23, “Busiest two weeks for recruiters”, in Recruiter Magazine

The first for loop looks at each word in the input line, incrementing the element of array num subscripted by the word.

1984, Brian W. Kernighan with Rob Pike, The UNIX programming environment, page 124