augment

[In Ger. † augment; Fr. augment; Port. aug men to; Ital. aumento; Lat. aug mentum, from augeo = to increase.] A. Ordinary Language: 1. The act of augmenting or increasing; the state of being augmented or increased. 2. That by which anything is increased; also the time during which increase takes place. "You shall find this augment of the tree to be with out the diminution of one drachm of the earth."Walton: Angler . "Discutients are improper in the beginning of in flamm a tions, but proper when mixed with repellants in the augment ."-Wiseman. B. Technically : 1. Philol. & Gram.: In Greek grammar, a prefix to the past tenses and to the paulopost future, intended to distinguish them from other tenses. The augment to the perfect and the paulo-post future prefix the initial consonant with e, and retain the syllable thus formed through all the moods. In this case the augment is called the reduplication . Thus from τύπτω ( tup to ) comes τέτυφα ( tetupha ), τετύψομαι ( tetupsomai ), where Te ( te ) is the augment. Constituting, as it does, a syllable, it is called a syllabic augment. Sometimes the augment is formed by substituting for a short vowel its corresponding long one, as ἐλπίζω (elpidzō), ἤλπιζον ( ēlpidzon ); the augment thus produced is termed a temporal augment. Dr. Donald son, in 1839, published the hypothesis that the augment is properly a pronominal particle, denoting distance or remotene , originally in space and then in time; a view which has since been adopted by Bopp, Garnett, Curtius, and others. (Donald son: New Cratylus, 3rd ed., 1859, p. 508, Note.) There is an augment in Sanscrit as well as in Greek.