Word.ws English Dictionary

escalating

escalating is the present participle and gerund of escalate.

Meaning of 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.
  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
  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
    Synonyms:
    escalator

Words formed from escalating

Questions about escalating

What is escalating the present participle and gerund of?
Escalating is the present participle and gerund of escalate.

Words near escalating in the dictionary

  1. Escalante
  2. Escalantes
  3. escalate
  4. escalated
  5. escalates
  6. escalating
  7. escalatingly
  8. escalatio
  9. escalation
  10. escalation plan
  11. escalation plans

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: escalating (page history and authors); escalate (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “escalating.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/escalating. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.