Adjacent Words

heighten definitions

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WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

v
1: become more extreme; "The tension heightened" [syn: heighten, rise]
2: make more extreme; raise in quantity, degree, or intensity; "heightened interest"
3: increase; "This will enhance your enjoyment"; "heighten the tension" [syn: enhance, heighten, raise]
4: increase the height of; "The athletes kept jumping over the steadily heightened bars"
5: make (one's senses) more acute; "This drug will sharpen your vision" [syn: sharpen, heighten]
6: make more intense, stronger, or more marked; "The efforts were intensified", "Her rudeness intensified his dislike for her"; "Pot smokers claim it heightens their awareness"; "This event only deepened my convictions" [syn: intensify, compound, heighten, deepen]

Merriam Webster's

verb (heightened; heightening) Date: 1523 transitive verb 1. a. to increase the amount or degree of ; augment b. to make brighter or more intense ; deepen c. to bring out more strongly ; point up d. to make more acute ; sharpen 2. a. to raise high or higher ; elevate b. to raise above the ordinary or trite 3. obsolete elate intransitive verb 1. archaic grow, rise 2. a. to become great or greater in amount, degree, or extent b. to become brighter or more intense

Oxford Reference Dictionary

v.tr. & intr. make or become higher or more intense.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Heighten Height"en (h[imac]t"'n), v. t. [Written also highten.] [imp. & p. p. Heightened; p. pr. & vb. n. Heightening.] 1. To make high; to raise higher; to elevate. 2. To carry forward; to advance; to increase; to augment; to aggravate; to intensify; to render more conspicuous; -- used of things, good or bad; as, to heighten beauty; to heighten a flavor or a tint. ``To heighten our confusion.'' --Addison. An aspect of mystery which was easily heightened to the miraculous. --Hawthorne.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

(heightens, heightening, heightened) If something heightens a feeling or if the feeling heightens, the feeling increases in degree or intensity. The move has heightened tension in the state... Cross's interest heightened. ...a heightened awareness of the dangers that they now face. = intensify VERB: V n, V, V-ed

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

v. a. 1. Elevate, raise, make higher or more lofty. 2. Exalt, greaten, magnify, ennoble. 3. Increase, enhance, augment, improve. 4. Intensify, aggravate.

Moby Thesaurus

accelerate, add to, agent provocateur, aggrandize, aggravate, amplify, annoy, augment, beef up, better, blow up, boost, build, build up, buoy up, cast up, complicate, compound, concentrate, condense, consolidate, deepen, deteriorate, double, elevate, embitter, enhance, enlarge, erect, escalate, exacerbate, exaggerate, exasperate, expand, extend, heat up, heave, heft, heist, hike, hoick, hoist, hold up, hop up, hot up, improve, increase, intensify, irritate, jazz up, jerk up, key up, knock up, levitate, lift, lift up, lob, loft, magnify, make acute, make complex, make worse, mount, multiply, perk up, provoke, raise, raise up, ramify, rear, rear up, redouble, reinforce, rise, rouse, set up, sharpen, sky, soup up, sour, step up, stick up, strengthen, supplement, throw up, triple, up, upbuoy, upcast, upheave, uphoist, uphold, uplift, upraise, uprear, upsurge, upthrow, wax, whet, worsen