enhance
Americanverb
Usage
What does enhance mean? To enhance is to raise to a higher degree, such as to magnify or intensify something. To enhance a photo, for example, is to improve the colors, lighting, or other characteristics in order to improve the photo.Generally speaking, enhancing somehow makes something better. Something that is enhanced has its intensity, value, or size increased.To enhance is also to increase the value or price of something. A tie might not be very valued just for being a tie, for example. But if that tie was worn by someone famous, the tie’s value is enhanced because that celebrity wore it.Example: Salt is commonly added to dishes to enhance their flavor.
Related Words
See elevate.
Other Word Forms
- enhancement noun
- enhancer noun
- enhancive adjective
- unenhanced adjective
Etymology
Origin of enhance
First recorded in 1325–75; Middle English enhauncen, from Anglo-French enhauncer, apparently for Old French enhaucer, equivalent to en- en- 1 + haucer “to raise” ( French hausser ) from the unattested Vulgar Latin altiāre (derivative of Latin altus “high,” with h-, from Germanic; haughty ), though -n- is unexplained
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Forty-eight MPAs have already been identified as part of an "ecologically significant" network of places "deserving of enhanced protection".
From BBC
The results are Romantic landscapes in miniature, with the variegation of the stone transforming into fields, skies and mountains whose beauty is further enhanced by the delicate metalwork in which they’re mounted.
The Labour minster, with responsibility for climate change, told the Senedd the new law represented "a significant moment in our determination to protect and enhance Wales' environment for this and future generations".
From BBC
The Boyle Heights project would enhance bike lanes and pedestrian-level lighting, as well as extend street curbs and plant more than 300 shade trees.
From Los Angeles Times
Oxfam, which has also seen some of its staff detained by the Houthis, is calling for enhanced global action to address the "dire and rapidly deteriorating" humanitarian needs in the north.
From BBC
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
