Increasingly means more and more as time goes on. When something happens increasingly, it grows or intensifies gradually. If your little brother is increasingly annoying as the day wears on, he's getting more bothersome with each passing hour. If a puzzle becomes increasingly difficult, each new section is harder than the last.

The word captures a trend or pattern of change. Scientists might notice that summers are increasingly hot, meaning each year tends to be warmer than the previous ones. A basketball player might become increasingly confident throughout the season as she practices and improves. A detective might grow increasingly suspicious as more clues point toward a particular suspect.

Increasingly often appears in observations about the world: “Email is becoming increasingly common in elementary schools” or “Students are increasingly interested in coding.” The word helps describe how change unfolds over time, whether that change is welcome (like increasingly good grades as you study harder) or unwelcome (like an increasingly messy room as the week goes by).