progressive tax
noun
Simple meaning
Any tax in which the rate increases as the amount subject to taxation increases.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
pruhgrehsihvtaksSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
pɹəɡˈɹɛsɪvˈtæks
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
governmenttaxation
Any tax in which the rate increases as the amount subject to taxation increases
governmenttaxation
A tax whose percentage increases as a person's wealth increases.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
This meaning: Any tax in which the rate increases as the amount subject to taxation increases
Used this way, progressive tax is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a financial use: it has a settled meaning in accounting and business, where precision matters more than colour.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Clinical and technical
- Usage feel
- Technical and specialized
Where it naturally appears
- Finance/economics
- Business/professional
- Government/politics
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.