advance

verb

1. To promote or advantage.

   “Some see it as in effect the end of the Syrian uprising that began with peaceful protests against Assad’s police state in 2011, with opposition fighters working to advance Turkey’s interests at the expense of the revolution’s goals.”

2. To promote or advantage.

   “After these things did king Ahasuerus promote Haman the son of Hammedatha the Agagite, and advanced him, and set his seat above all the princes that were with him.”

   “This, however, was in time evaded by the monarchs, who advanced certain of their own retainers to a level with the ancient peers of the land[…]”

3. To move forward in space or time.

   “Whence and what art thou, execrable shape, / That dar'st, though grim and terrible, advance / Thy miscreated front athwart my way / To yonder gates?”

4. To move forward in space or time.

   “[S]in and sorrow it were, considering the hardships of this noble and gallant knight, no whit mentioning or weighing those we ourselves have endured, if we were now either to advance or retard the hour of refection beyond the time when the viands are fit to be set before us.”

5. (intransitive)To move forward in space or time.

   “I advanced towards him step by step, stopping sometimes for fear of waking him.”

   “This army recaptured Wu-chʻang, on the right bank of the Yangtze, in 1854, reached Chen-chiang four years later, advanced to Chiu-chiang and threatened Nanking.”

6. To move forward in space or time.

   ““I had intended to ask you to advance me a hundred pounds,” said Phineas.”

   “On the urgent representations of several parties of the first importance in the City of London, the bank advanced 120,000l. to the Governor and Company of the Copper Miners […].”

7. To move forward in space or time.

   “Some ne'er advance a Judgement of their own, / But catch the spreading notion of the Town […].”

   “Ghosts, it is advanced, either do not exist at all, or else, like the stars at noonday, they are there all the time and it is we who cannot see them. The stories in the following pages were written on the second of these assumptions.”

8. (intransitive)To move forward in space or time.

   “Earlier the caller said men were more likely to be in senior positions. Clegg says that's partly because the current maternity leave arrangements make it difficult for women to advance in the workplace.”

9. (intransitive)To move forward in space or time.

   “I can promise you that you will feel even less humorous as the evening advances.”

10. (archaic, transitive)To raise, be raised.

    “The fringed Curtaines of thine eyes aduance.”

11. To raise, be raised.

    “In February last […] bakers advanced the price of bread sold over the counter in London from 8d. to 8½d. per quartern loaf.”

12. To raise, be raised.
13. (intransitive)To raise, be raised.

noun

1. A forward move; improvement or progression.

   “an advance in health or knowledge”

   “an advance in rank or office”

2. An amount of money or credit, especially given as a loan, or paid before it is due; an advancement.

   “Could he ask the cashier privately for an advance? No, the cashier was no good, no damn good: he wouldn't give an advance.”

   “I shall, with pleasure, make the necessary advances.”

3. An addition to the price; rise in price or value.

   “an advance on the prime cost of goods”

4. (in-plural, often)An opening approach or overture, now especially of an unwelcome or sexual nature.

   “For, if it were of any use to recall matters of fact, what is more notorious, than that prince's applying himself first to the church of England? and upon their refusal to fall in with his measures, making the like advances to the dissenters of all kinds, who readily and almost universally complied with him”

   “And so saying he scampered off to the hill, to the amusement of honest Plat; and it is likely lost no time in making his advances to the young widow.”

   “As the sun fell, so did our spirits. I had tried to make advances to the girl again; but she would have none of me, and so I was not only thirsty but otherwise sad and downhearted.”

   “I felt vaguely he was a sneak, and remained quite unmollified by advances on his side, which, in a boy's barbarous fashion, unless it suited me to be magnanimous, I haughtily ignored.”

   “[A]nd Rosamund though quite a genteelly brought up young lady had responded to his advances by slapping his face.”

adj

1. Completed before necessary or a milestone event.

   “He made an advance payment on the prior shipment to show good faith.”

   “In general, if you are applying for adjustment of status (a Green Card) and leave the United States without the appropriate travel documentation (for example, an advance parole document), you may not be allowed to reenter the United States when you return.”

2. Preceding.

   “The advance man came a month before the candidate.”

3. Forward.

   “The scouts found a site for an advance base.”