escalate
/ˈeskəleɪt/verb
no obj.
1- increase rapidly迅速增加, 迅速增长：
the price of tickets escalated
票价飞涨
as adj. escalating the escalating cost of health care.迅速增加的保健费用。
1.1
- become or cause to become more intense or serious（使）增强; （使）变得严重; （使）升级：
no obj. the disturbance escalated into a full-scale riot骚乱演变成了全面的暴乱
with obj. we do not want to escalate the war.我们不想使战争升级。
派生词
escalation
noun词源
1920s （in the sense 'travel on an escalator'）： back-formation from ESCALATOR.