\In"cre*ment\, n. [L. incrementum: cf. F.
incr['e]ment. See {Increase}.]
1. The act or process of increasing; growth in bulk,
   guantity, number, value, or amount; augmentation;
   enlargement.
         The seminary that furnisheth matter for the
         formation and increment of animal and vegetable
         bodies.                               --Woodward.
         A nation, to be great, ought to be compressed in its
         increment by nations more civilized than itself.
                                               --Coleridge.
2. Matter added; increase; produce; production; -- opposed to
   {decrement}. ``Large increment.'' --J. Philips.
3. (Math.) The increase of a variable quantity or fraction
   from its present value to its next ascending value; the
   finite quantity, generally variable, by which a variable
   quantity is increased.
4. (Rhet.) An amplification without strict climax, as in the
   following passage:
         Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true,
         whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are
         just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things
         are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, .
         . . think on these things.            --Phil. iv. 8.
{Infinitesimal increment} (Math.), an infinitesimally small
   variation considered in Differential Calculus. See
   {Calculus}.
{Method of increments} (Math.), a calculus founded on the
   properties of the successive values of variable quantities
   and their differences or increments. It differs from the
   method of fluxions in treating these differences as
   finite, instead of infinitely small, and is equivalent to
   the calculus of finite differences.