accretionaryadj.

1841 J. Phillips Figures & Descr. Palæozoic Fossils Cornwall 157 It is certain, in regard to sandstones especially, that the oxide of iron, to which the tint is generally owing, is a mere investment, a thin film which has been added by some accretionary process.

1872 D. Brown Life Late J. Duncan 409 The ‘real’ [body], he says, shrinks at the amputation of a limb, the ‘accretionary’ part only being cut off.

1926 C. E. Russell Julia Marlowe 60 Most of our acting in standard plays is accretionary.

1957 P. B. Medawar Uniqueness Individual v. 110 The only growth which is purely additive or accretionary is that of which the product takes no further part in the physiological activity of the body, as with shells or hair.

1989 S. J. Gould Wonderful Life (1991) 238 The continuous accretionary growth of mollusks.

2007 H. Shirane Trad. Japanese Lit. Introd. 10 The history of Japanese literary genres tends to be accretionary. Every major historical era gave birth to new genres, but usually without destroying or abandoning the earlier forms.

1974 Earth & Planetary Sci. Lett. 21 211/1 The small size of the accretionary prism, together with the extensional or block faulting along the Peru-Chile coast suggest removal of the continental border during an Early Tertiary episode of oblique subduction and intra-arc system extension.

2010 R. Gill Igneous Rocks & Processes vi. 186/2 The dominant structures in this accretionary prism are folding and thrust faulting.

1977 B. Biju-Duval & L. Montadert in Struct. Hist. Mediterranean Basins 3/2 A tectonized pile of sediments corresponding to the front of an accretionary prism.

2010 Sci. Let. (Nexis) 13 July 1603 These rocks form part of an accretionary wedge that developed along the east Australian margin during the Carboniferous-Triassic.