Word.ws English Dictionary

plus

/ˈplɜs/UK/ˈplʌs/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

plus preposition: and; sum of the previous one and the following one. Also the abbreviation of LGBT+.

Preposition

plus

  1. And; sum of the previous one and the following one.
    • Two plus two equals four.
    • A water molecule is made up of two hydrogen atoms plus one of oxygen.
  2. (colloquial) With; having in addition.
    • I've won a holiday to France plus five hundred euros in spending money!

Conjunction

plus

  1. And also; in addition; besides (which).
    • Let's go home now. It's late, plus I'm not feeling too well.

Noun

plus (plural pluses or plusses)

  1. A positive quantity.
    • The figures show a plus.
    • But the pluses far outweigh the criticisms.2023 April 19, Pip Dunn, “Jack of all trades... and master of most”, in RAIL, number 981, page 57
  2. An asset or useful addition.
    • He is a real plus to the team.
    • Look at Trife. He's got two felonies. That means he's finished in society. But he can rap. His two felonies, in rap, man, that's a plus.2000 July 6, N. R. Kleinfield, quoting Dog, “Guarding the Borders Of the Hip-Hop Nation”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, archived from the original on 20 Apr 2023
    Synonyms:
    asset
  3. A plus sign: +.
    Synonyms:
    plus sign

Adjective

plus (not comparable)

  1. Being positive rather than negative or zero.
    • −2 * −2 = +4 ("minus 2 times minus 2 equals plus four")
  2. Positive, or involving advantage.
    • He is a plus factor.
  3. Electrically positive.
    • A battery has both a plus pole and a minus pole.
  4. (informal, postpositional) (Of a quantity) Equal to or greater than; or more; upwards.
    • The bus can fit 60 plus kids, but we only get 48.
  5. (informal) And more.
    • Have you been to Brazil, Bhutan, or Botswana? Well, I haven't and I'm reday ^([sic]) to go ― almost anywhere interesting actually. Warm, wise world traveler seeks equally exciting, self-sufficient soul for adventures plus.1985 August 10, “Personal advertisement”, in Gay Community News, volume 13, number 5, page 13

Verb

plus (third-person singular simple present pluss or plusses, present participle plusing or plussing, simple past and past participle plused or plussed)

  1. (informal) To add; to subject to addition.
    • For him y is a unique number, like 7, but for the time being unknown — if one does the operation of 'plussing 4' one still has, as a result, a unique number even though one does not yet know what it is.1973, Australian Council for Educational Research, ACER research series - Issues 93-95, page 39
    • The teacher observing the behavior of a child who is plussing or not-plussing is observing instances or not-instances of the concept of plussing.1974, Control of Human Behavior: Behavior modification in education
  2. (often) To increase in magnitude.
    • I am doing a lot of writing here, plussing the script, adding sequences.2006, Danny Fingeroth, Mike Manley, How to Create Comics: From Script to Print, →ISBN, page 48
    • We are losing at the street level a number of officers, but we are plussing up deputy positions.2009, United States Congress House Committee on Homeland Security, The Direction and Viability of the Federal Protective Service
  3. To improve.
    • Coach Wooden didn't have to depend upon having the most talented players on his team because he could depend upon plussing to constantly make everyone better.1998, Nate Booth, Strategies for Fast-Changing Times, →ISBN, page 91
    • Keep fooling around with it, improving it, and making it better. You know you have a unique factor when someone steals it. So keep the unique factor unique by constantly plussing it.2007, Howard Hendricks, Color Outside the Lines, →ISBN, page 123
  4. To provide critical feedback by giving suggestions for improvement rather than criticisms.
    • The animators and directors on the receiving end of the plussing don't necessarily have to accept and incorporate the feedback, but plussing provides a method to share criticisms in a way that makes it more likely that they will.2013, David Burkus, The Myths of Creativity, →ISBN
    • Strategic leaders can adapt the US Army's after-action review and Pixar's plussing technique (where you build on ideas rather than critique and subtract) to show their teams how to learn from mistakes.2014, Steven Krupp, Paul J.H. Schoemaker, Winning the Long Game: How Strategic Leaders Shape the Future, →ISBN
  5. (sales) To sell additional related items with an original purchase.
    • Good will is also secured by plussing the original purchase with another article that goes appropriately with it.1920, The Current Business Cyclopedia: Business Digest
    • Plussing the original sale creates a win-win situation. The customer benefits because it often saves him the time necessary to run back to the store for overlooked items.1986, Max Fallek, How to Set Up and Operate Your Own Law Practice
  6. To frame in a positive light; to provide a sympathetic interpretation.
    • Plussing is a technique for enhancing a positive atmosphere in the session, for diminishing hostility, and for raising self-esteem.1979, Douglas A. Puryear, Helping People in Crisis, page 87
    • In addition to active listening as a general therapeutic strategy, Puryear identifies two specific techniques, plussing and paradox, that are used throughout the crisis intervention.1997, Bernard L. Bloom, Planned short-term psychotherapy: a clinical handbook, page 187
  7. (dated, social media) To give a mark of approval on Google+.
    • How do you get others to add you or your brand to their circles? By creating and sharing useful content, commenting, plussing others' content and comments, and engaging with others on Google+.2012, Lee Odden, Optimize, →ISBN, page 111
    • Everyone was plussing them or liking them or pinning them. The videos went viral.2014, Ed Catmull, Creativity, Inc., →ISBN, page 279
  8. To increase the potency of a remedy by diluting it in water and stirring.
    • On hearing this, plussing was done (all medicated water of the phial was thrown away and fresh distilled was added and 10 strokes were given) on the 13th February 1974.2005, B. Sahni, Transmission of Homoeo Drug Energy from Distance, →ISBN, page 188
    • From the remaining water a second dilution can be prepared plussing it to the next slightly higher potency.2007, Kate Birch, Vaccine Free Prevention and Treatment of Infectious Contagious Disease with Homeopathy, →ISBN
  9. To increase a correction.
    • No aspheric cataract spectacle lens designer has ever given the slightest thought to this 4 to 6 diopters of over-plussing for peripheral vision which is responsible for tremendous peripheral distortion, worse peripheral swim, worse false orientation, worse magnification, severe concave curvature...1976, David M. Worthen, Perry S. Binder, The intraocular lens in perspective, →ISBN, page 2

Proper noun capitalized: PLUS

PLUS

  1. (Malaysia, abbreviation, ellipsis) Ellipsis of PLUS Expressways (North-South Highway Project Company), a Malaysian business that operates tolls in several expressways along the west coast of Peninsular Malaysia
  2. (Malaysia, colloquial) Synonym of North-South Expressway, a network of tolled highways controlled by PLUS Expressways
    Synonyms:
    North-South Expressway, PLUS Highway, PLUS Expressway

Also used as

plus is also the abbreviation of LGBT+.

plus meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

plus in Hindi

प्लस

plus in Tamil

பிளஸ்

plus in Marathi

प्लस

plus in Urdu

پلس
More languagesFewer languages
plus in Bengali
প্লাস
plus in Telugu
ప్లస్
plus in Malayalam
പ്ലസ്
plus in Kannada
ಪ್ಲಸ್
plus in Punjabi
ਪਲੱਸ
plus in Gujarati
વત્તા vattā
plus in Odia
ପ୍ଲସ୍
plus in Tagalog
dagdag
plus in Arabic
زَائِد zāʔid, بِالْإِضَافَة إِلَى bi-l-ʔiḍāfa ʔilā
plus in Persian
به علاوه be 'alâve-ye
plus in Thai
บวก bùuak
plus in Vietnamese
cộng

Examples of plus in a sentence

  • He was a pioneer in plussing the artform of animated cartoons.2004, Pat Williams, Jim Denney, How to Be Like Walt: Capturing the Disney Magic Every Day of Your Life, →ISBN, page 154:
  • When people view the early drafts of ideas for their movies under development, they always use plussing to try and come up with suggestions for enhancements.2014, BusinessNews Publishing, Summary : Little Bets - Peter Sims, →ISBN:
  • When plussing, the intervenor introduces novel viewpoints that can increase the self-esteem of both the attacker and the target.2015, Kenneth France, Crisis Intervention, →ISBN, page 177:
  • Plussing is used quite frequently in a patient who's quite sensitive or has an acute problem happening or needs to change his dose or need to take it over several days.2011, Kim Lane, Homeopathy for Home: Acute Illness & Injury Care, →ISBN, page 29:

All 40 example sentences with plus

Synonyms of plus

1 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of plus

Forms of plus

Noun
pluralpluses
pluralplusses
Verb
third-person singular presentpluss
third-person singular presentplusses
present participleplusing
present participleplussing
past participleplused
pastplused
past participleplussed
pastplussed

Origin of plus

Borrowed from Latin plūs (“more”).

Borrowed from Malay Projek Lebuhraya Utara Selatan Berhad (“North-South Highway Project Company”), PLUS Expressway's original name in Malay.

Words formed from plus

Phrases with plus

1 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with plus

11 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about plus

What does plus mean?
Plus means and; sum of the previous one and the following one.
What is plus in Hindi?
Plus in Hindi is प्लस. See Plus meaning in Hindi.
How do you use plus in a sentence?
He was a pioneer in plussing the artform of animated cartoons.
What part of speech is plus?
Plus can be a preposition, a conjunction, a noun or an adjective.
How do you pronounce plus?
Plus is pronounced /ˈplʌs/ (UK).

Words near plus in the dictionary

  1. plurivorous
  2. plurivory
  3. pluronic
  4. pluronic acid
  5. pluronics
  6. plus
  7. plus factor
  8. plus factors
  9. plus fours
  10. plus mark
  11. plus marks

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: plus (page history and authors); PLUS (page history and authors); plus (Hindi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); plus (Tamil, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); plus (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); plus (Urdu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); plus (Bengali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); plus (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); plus (Malayalam, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); plus (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); plus (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); plus (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-plus.ogg, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Wodencafe-plus.wav.

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