accretive

adjective

ac·​cre·​tive ə-ˈkrē-tiv 

: relating to or characterized by accretion : produced by or growing by a series of additions of identical or similar things

an accretive process

accretive crystals [=crystals formed by accretion]

Companies need to be able to issue stock at high prices to fund acquisitions that are accretive to earnings.

—Bethany McLean

To [Ben] Zobrist, an ideal clubhouse is one where you can't tell whether a team has lost or won four games in a row. That's possible because of the steady, accretive cadence of baseball, a sport in which alternating games of no hits and three hits will win you a batting title.

—Bruce Schoenfeld

Synonyms

• cumulative

Examples of accretive in a Sentence

the story of his encounter with the bear was awash with accretive exaggeration, the bear becoming larger with each retelling of the tale

Recent Examples on the Web

When the stock price is greater than the NAV of the underlying crypto asset (mNAV > 1), selling equity to buy the underlying crypto asset is generally accretive to shareholders. —Christopher Perkins, Forbes.com, 8 Sep. 2025

Premium valuations make fundraising accretive, which funds more purchases, which supports the story. —Josh Hammer, MSNBC Newsweek, 26 Aug. 2025

There are also several billions of dollars worth of expense and network synergies that should make this deal highly accretive to earnings per share. —Jeff Marks, CNBC, 22 July 2025

Monuments from the Holocene Humid Period in the Dhofar were built in a single episode by groups requiring as many as seven strong men, whereas the subsequent aridification of the climate and resulting dispersion of the population encouraged the creation of accretive monuments. —Rafil Kroll-Zaidi, Harpers Magazine, 16 July 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1661, in the meaning defined above