reduce

reduce is a 6-letter English word with 29 senses as noun and verb in the JumbleFix dictionary. One common meaning is: To bring or lead back to any former place or condition. Face value is 9 in Scrabble and 11 in Words With Friends. Use the entries below when you need a playable sense, a nearby word, or another arrangement of the same letters.

6 letters · Scrabble 9 · Words With Friends 11 · 29 senses

Definitions

1. noun. To bring or lead back to any former place or condition.
2. noun. To bring to any inferior state, with respect to rank, size, quantity, quality, value, etc.; to diminish; to lower; to degrade; to impair; as, to reduce a sergeant to the ranks; to reduce a drawing; to reduce expenses; to reduce the intensity of heat.
3. noun. To bring to terms; to humble; to conquer; to subdue; to capture; as, to reduce a province or a fort.
4. noun. To bring to a certain state or condition by grinding, pounding, kneading, rubbing, etc.; as, to reduce a substance to powder, or to a pasty mass; to reduce fruit, wood, or paper rags, to pulp.
5. noun. To bring into a certain order, arrangement, classification, etc.; to bring under rules or within certain limits of descriptions and terms adapted to use in computation; as, to reduce animals or vegetables to a class or classes; to reduce a series of observations in astronomy; to reduce language to rules.
6. noun. To change, as numbers, from one denomination into another without altering their value, or from one denomination into others of the same value; as, to reduce pounds, shillings, and pence to pence, or to reduce pence to pounds; to reduce days and hours to minutes, or minutes to days and hours.
7. noun. To change the form of a quantity or expression without altering its value; as, to reduce fractions to their lowest terms, to a common denominator, etc.
8. noun. To bring to the metallic state by separating from impurities; hence, in general, to remove oxygen from; to deoxidize; to combine with, or to subject to the action of, hydrogen; as, ferric iron is reduced to ferrous iron; or metals are reduced from their ores; -- opposed to oxidize.
9. noun. To restore to its proper place or condition, as a displaced organ or part; as, to reduce a dislocation, a fracture, or a hernia.
10. verb. take off weight

    Synonyms: slenderize, slim, thin

11. verb. lessen the strength or flavor of a solution or mixture

    "cut bourbon"

    Synonyms: cut, dilute, thin

12. verb. narrow or limit

    "reduce the influx of foreigners"

    Synonyms: tighten

13. verb. cook until very little liquid is left

    "The cook reduced the sauce by boiling it for a long time"

    Synonyms: concentrate

14. verb. be cooked until very little liquid is left

    "The sauce should reduce to one cup"

    Synonyms: concentrate, decoct

15. verb. be the essential element

    "The proposal boils down to a compromise"

16. verb. to remove oxygen from a compound, or cause to react with hydrogen or form a hydride, or to undergo an increase in the number of electrons

    Synonyms: deoxidise, deoxidize

17. verb. make smaller

    "reduce an image"

18. verb. reduce in size; reduce physically

    "Hot water will shrink the sweater"

    "Can you shrink this image?"

    Synonyms: shrink

19. verb. make less complex

    "reduce a problem to a single question"

20. verb. reduce in scope while retaining essential elements

    "The manuscript must be shortened"

    Synonyms: abbreviate, abridge, contract, cut, foreshorten, shorten

21. verb. cut down on; make a reduction in

    "reduce your daily fat intake"

    "The employer wants to cut back health benefits"

    Synonyms: cut, trim

22. verb. destress and thus weaken a sound when pronouncing it
23. verb. reposition (a broken bone after surgery) back to its normal site
24. verb. undergo meiosis

    "The cells reduce"

25. verb. lower in grade or rank or force somebody into an undignified situation

    "She reduced her niece to a servant"

26. verb. simplify the form of a mathematical equation of expression by substituting one term for another
27. verb. lessen and make more modest

    "reduce one's standard of living"

28. verb. bring to humbler or weaker state or condition

    "He reduced the population to slavery"

29. verb. put down by force or intimidation

    "The government quashes any attempt of an uprising"

    "China keeps down her dissidents very efficiently"

    Synonyms: quash, repress, subdue, subjugate

Synonyms

slenderize, slim, thin, cut, dilute, tighten, concentrate, decoct, deoxidise, deoxidize, shrink, abbreviate, abridge, contract, foreshorten, shorten, trim, quash, repress, subdue, subjugate

Common word forms

reduced, reducer, reduces, reducing, reduceable, reducement

Words from these letters

If you are holding these tiles, the unscrambler for REDUCE lists every valid word you can make from the same letters, including shorter plays.