accretion

[Lat. accretio = an increment, from accretus, pa. par. of accresco: ad = to, and cresco = to grow.] I. The act or proce of causing anything to increase by making an addition to its substance. 1. By mechanical action. (For example, see No. II.) 2. By the growth of a living body. Specially : (a) Med . By the growth of an animal body. "Infants support abstinence worse from the quan tity of aliment consumed in accretion,"-Arbuthnot: Aliments . (b) Bot. The growth of one portion of a plant to another. ( Loudon : Cyclop. of Plants, Glo .) 3. By the natural laws regulating the action of the human mind. Spec., of the growth of a myth by the addition of much fable around a grain of truth. "Upon this narrow basis a detailed narrative has been built which was doubtle forined by a series of succe ive accretions."-Lewis: Early Roman Hist., ch. x. 4. By the action of human law. English Law : The union or acce ion of a thing vague or vacant to another already occupied or disposed of. Thus, if a legacy be given to two persons conjointly, and one of the two dies, his share pa es over to his colleague by accretion. The most common use of the term is with respect to land imperceptibly deposited from a river or the ocean. If this is inconsiderable, it may be taken po e ion of by the neighbouring proprietor; but if it is great, it belongs to the Crown. (See Will, Wharton's Law Lexicon .) II. The state of having additions made to it by the proce now described. "Secondly, plants do nourish, inanimate bodies do not they have an accretion , but no alimentation.' Bacon: Nat . Hist ., ch. vii., § 602. III. That which is added by the above described proce . "A uming, however, that we are to strip off all the subordinate parts of his narrative as a later accretion, and to retain only a nucleus of the leading facts "-Lewis: Early Roman Hist . , ch. xii, 54