reduce: [14] ‘Lessen, diminish’ is a comparatively recent semantic development for reduce. Its Latin ancestor was certainly not used in that sense. This was redūcere, a compound verb formed from the prefix re- ‘back, again’ and dūcere ‘lead, bring’ (source of English duct, duke, educate, etc). It meant literally ‘bring back’, hence ‘restore’ and also ‘withdraw’.
The original ‘bring back’ made the journey to English, and even survived into the early 17th century (‘reducing often to my memory the conceit of that Roman stoic’, Sir Henry Wotton, Elements of Architecture 1624). The sense ‘lessen, diminish’ seems to be the result of a semantic progression from ‘bring back to a particular condition’ via ‘bring back to order’ and ‘bring to subjection’. => duct, duke, educate, introduce, produce, redoubt
reduce (v.)
late 14c., "bring back," from Old French reducer (14c.), from Latin reducere "lead back, bring back," figuratively "restore, replace," from re- "back" (see re-) + ducere "bring, lead" (see duke (n.)). Meaning "bring to an inferior condition" is 1570s; that of "bring to a lower rank" is 1640s (military reduce to ranks is from 1802); that of "subdue by force of arms" is 1610s. Sense of "to lower, diminish, lessen" is from 1787. Related: Reduced; reducing.
双语例句
1. The job losses will reduce the total workforce to 7,000.
职位减少后，在职工人总数将减至7,000人。
来自柯林斯例句
2. He finally corrected his misstatement and offered to reduce the fee.
他终于纠正了自己的错误说法，提出要减少费用。
来自柯林斯例句
3. The plan is designed to reduce some of the company's mountainous debt.
该计划旨在减少公司堆积如山的债务。
来自柯林斯例句
4. The agency should reduce turnaround time by 11 per cent.
该代理机构应削减11%的周转时间。
来自柯林斯例句
5. They believed that controlling the money supply would reduce inflation.