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.
例文
1. The job losses will reduce the total workforce to 7000.
職位が減少すると、在職労働者総数は7000人に減少する。
2.He finally corrected his missstatement and offered to reduce the fee.
彼はついに自分の間違った言い方を正し、費用を減らすことを提案した。
3.The plan is designed to reduce some of the company 's mountainous debt.
この計画は、会社が山積みにしている債務を減らすことを目的としている。
4.The agency should reduce turnaround time by 11 per cent.
このエージェントは11%の回転時間を削減しなければならない。
5.They believed that controlling the money supply would reduce infration.