the.com/reduce
The brutal art of boiling everything down until only the truth survives.
means To make something smaller, fewer, or less in size, amount, degree, or intensity — or, in cooking, to thicken a liquid by simmering off its water.
from From Latin reducere, literally "to lead back" — from re- ("back") plus ducere ("to lead," the same root that gives us conduct, induce, and duke). Early English uses leaned on that literal sense of leading or bringing something back to an earlier state; the modern meaning of "making less" grew out of the idea of bringing a thing down or back to a smaller measure. The kitchen sense, that patient simmering-down of a sauce, is the same logic worn into an apron.
- kitchen sense
- Simmer a sauce; water flees, flavor stays behind
- code origin
- Powers map-reduce, the engine behind early big data
- latin root
- From reducere, literally to lead back
- math habit
- Fractions beg to be reduced to lowest terms
- functional staple
- One function folds a whole list into one value
reduce act 1872 — us law that reduced tariffs by 10%, first major tariff reduction after civil war
reduce operating expenses — general motors cut $10 billion in costs in 2023 to improve profitability