Verb

Infinitive to reduce

Third person singular reduces

Simple past reduced

Past participle reduced

Present participle reducing

to reduce (third-person singular simple present reduces, present participle reducing, simple past and past participle reduced)

1. (transitive) To bring down the size, quantity, value or intensity of something; to diminish, to lower, to impair.
   • to reduce weight, speed, heat, expenses, price, personnel etc.
2. (intransitive) To lose weight.
3. (transitive) To bring to an inferior rank; to degrade, to demote.
   • to reduce a sergeant to the ranks
   • An ancient but reduced family. --Sir Walter Scott.
   • Nothing so excellent but a man may fasten upon something belonging to it, to reduce it. --John Tillotson.
   • Having reduced their foe to misery beneath their fears. -- John Milton.
   • Hester Prynne was shocked at the condition to which she found the clergyman reduced. --Nathaniel Hawthorne.
4. (transitive) To humble; to conquer; to subdue; to capture.
   • to reduce a province or a fort
5. (transitive) To bring to an inferior state or condition.
   • to reduce a city to ashes
6. (transitive, cooking) To decrease the liquid content of food by boiling much of its water off.
7. (transitive, chemistry) To add electrons / hydrogen or to remove oxygen.
8. (transitive, metallurgy) To produce metal from ore by removing nonmetallic elements in a smelter.
9. (transitive, mathematics) To simplify an equation or formula without changing its value.
10. (transitive, law) To convert to written form (Usage note: this verb almost always take the phrase "to writing").
    • It is important that all business contracts be reduced to writing.

Related terms

• reducible
• reductase
• reduction
• reductive

Reduction, reduced, or reduce may refer to:

Science

Chemistry

• Reduction, part of a reduction-oxidation (redox) reaction in which atoms have their oxidation number (oxidation state) changed
  • Reduced gas, a gas with a low oxidation number
  • Reducing atmosphere, an oxygen-poor gaseous environment that inhibits oxidation
  • Ore reduction: see smelting