escalate

Verb

escalate (third-person singular simple present escalates, present participle escalating, simple past and past participle escalated)

1. (ambitransitive) To increase (something) in extent or intensity; to intensify or step up.
   • Violence escalated during the election.
   • The shooting escalated the existing hostility.
2. (transitive) In technical support, to transfer a customer, a problem, etc. to the next higher level of authority
   • The tech 1 escalated the caller to a tech 2.
3. (uncommon) To climb.
   • Thus, actually a prior uncounselled misdemeanor conviction may often prove to be a boon to one escalating the ladder of crime to the point where he has been convicted of a major aggravated offense.1975, Federal Reporter, page 537
   • They escalated upstairs to the Mall coffee tables.1977, Graham Jackson, The Coals of Juniper, Champion Publications, →ISBN, page 48
4. (rare) To move by escalator.
   • Escalator after escalator flowed up to the heights above, […] Dov escalated up beside me, scowling.2000, David Damrosch, Meetings of the Mind, Princeton, N.J.; Oxford: Princeton University Press, →ISBN, page 31
   • There were people just about everywhere, packing the garish fluorescent-lit corridors, riding in humming golf carts, escalating up and down escalators, floating along on those George Jetson moving sidewalk thingies.2014, James Patterson, Burn (Michael Bennett), Arrow Books, published 2015, →ISBN, page 32

   Synonyms:

   escalator