Rise and fall

Business people often need to talk about the movement of sales, prices, interest rates, profit and loss, etc. Here are some of the words used to describe these trends (= movements)

rise / go up / increase rise slowly rise sharply

(also gradually)

fall / go down fall slowly go down

(‘decrease’ is less sharply

common as a verb)

Note: rise, increase, and fall are also used as nouns: a slow rise in interest rates, a steady increase in sales, a sharp fall in profits, a dramatic (= sharp) rise in inflation. We can alsouse be up/down: prices are up by 10%; profits are down by £2m.