Coins dropped into a jar one at a time. No single coin matters, and on any given day nothing looks different — but you keep adding without taking away, and months later the jar is heavy. `accumulation` names both that slow adding-up and the pile it leaves behind. Two things are always true: it happens little by little, and nothing is being removed.
From the word’s history
From Latin accumulare "to heap up", from ad- "to" + cumulus "a heap, a pile" — the same cumulus we still use for the piled-up cumulus cloud. The original picture is literally adding to a heap, which the modern word has never really left.
來自拉丁文 accumulare（堆起來），由 ad-（往…加）+ cumulus（堆）組成——cumulus 這個字今天還活著，就是氣象學裡那種一坨一坨堆高的「積雲」。所以這個字從頭到尾就是「往一堆上面再加」的畫面，兩千年沒走遠：不管加的是錢、知識還是灰塵，動作都是同一個。
Wiktionary etymology tree supplied with this entry (Latin ad- + cumulus → accumulare), cross-checked against the surviving meteorological term cumulus
登入就可以看每一支怎麼連回核心畫面。
原始詞典資料7 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，摘錄並精簡格式，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
accumulationnoun/əˌkjuːm.jəˈleɪ.ʃən/
- 1
The act of amassing or gathering, as into a pile.
- 2
The process of growing into a heap or a large amount.
- an accumulation of earth, of sand, of evils, of wealth, or of honors
- At the lowest point, a short length of tunnel was driven alongside the up line, with a cross passage, to serve as a sump and pump house for dealing with any accumulation of water.
- 3
A mass of something piled up or collected.
- After such an accumulation of mistakes in the treatment of lexical items, it comes as no surprise that the section on word formation on p. 133 is equally poor.
- 4
lawThe concurrence of several titles to the same proof.
- 5
accountingbusinessfinanceThe continuous growth of capital by retention of interest or savings.
- 6
businessfinanceThe action of investors buying an asset from other investors when the price of the asset is low.
- 7
historicaleducationThe practice of taking two higher degrees simultaneously, to reduce the length of study.
摘錄自 英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary，已精簡格式；依 CC BY-SA 4.0 授權使用，改動後的內容同樣以此授權提供。