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by Kate Woodford

One of several things we do on this blog is look at the various ways we say the same – or a similar – thing. As the saying goes, variety is the spice of life! Today’s post will provide you with a range of ways to say ‘gradually’, including phrases and single words.

Let’s start with a group of useful phrases in which a single word is repeated, linked with the preposition ‘by’. If you do something or something happens bit by bit or little by little, you do it or it happens gradually, sometimes in stages:

Add the milk bit by bit, whisking all the while.

Little by little, her health improved.

The phrase step by step also means gradually (or gradual) but has the additional meaning of ‘one thing at a time, in a fixed order’:

I followed the instructions step by step, so I don’t know where I went wrong.

You’ll find hundreds of delicious recipes with step-by-step instructions.

There’s one more repeating phrase in this area: inch by inch. If someone moves somewhere inch by inch, they do it very gradually and often carefully. If they search somewhere inch by inch, they do so gradually, with great attention to detail:

She lowered herself, inch by inch, into the freezing cold water.

They went through the apartment inch by inch in their search for evidence.

Moving on from those repeating phrases, we say that something happens by degrees, meaning that it happens gradually:

His writing had improved by degrees over the course of the year, but his final essay was still not terribly good.

Finally for phrases, something that happens in dribs and drabs happens gradually, in small amounts, a few at a time:

Details of the scandal have emerged in dribs and drabs.

Let’s look now at a group of adverbs in this area. If something happens steadily, it takes place gradually and at a consistent rate:

Property prices in the region have been rising steadily.

Meanwhile, something that happens imperceptibly happens so slowly and gradually that it is almost impossible to notice:

Sea levels will rise slowly, almost imperceptibly, until the problem is too extreme to address.

Something that becomes progressively worse, more difficult, better, etc. does so gradually, over a period of time:

The symptoms became progressively worse during her pregnancy.

As the disease develops, movement becomes progressively more difficult.

With physical therapy, her mobility progressively improved.

Finally, something that is done piecemeal is done gradually, at different times or in different ways, and not according to an overall plan:

The art collection was split up and sold piecemeal.

That concludes my post on ways of saying ‘gradually’. I’d be interested to learn whether your language uses repeating word phrases such as ‘bit by bit’. Let me know below!