Increment

1. The act or process of increasing; growth in bulk, guantity, number, value, or amount; augmentation; enlargement.
2. Matter added; increase; produce; production; -- opposed to decrement.
3. (Math.) The increase of a variable quantity or fraction from its present value to its next ascending value; the finite quantity, generally variable, by which a variable quantity is increased.
4. (Rhet.) An amplification without strict climax, as in the following passage:
Infinitesimal increment (Math.),
an infinitesimally small variation considered in Differential Calculus. See Calculus.
Method of increments (Math.),
a calculus founded on the properties of the successive values of variable quantities and their differences or increments. It differs from the method of fluxions in treating these differences as finite, instead of infinitely small, and is equivalent to the calculus of finite differences.