MEANING
1. To make or become stronger, more intense, or more noticeable.
2. To increase the physical height of something by raising it or making it taller.
Use it for
showing tension increasing gradually; describing a detail that intensifies a mood; making a contrast more noticeable; showing a sense or awareness becoming more acuteSpecifies increasing an effect’s strength without assuming a particular emotion, and distinguishes literal raising in height. Writing functions: Atmosphere / Intensification.
Words that belong together
- heighten tension
- heighten awareness
- heighten a contrast
On the page
The steady ticking only heightened the silence between their remarks.
Her awareness of the narrow exit heightened as the room filled.
They heightened the wall without replacing its weathered lower stones.
The new platform heightened the barrier between the chamber and the passage.
Word forms
- Base
- heighten
- Past tense
- heightened
- Past participle
- heightened
- Present participle
- heightening
Full tense & aspect guide
- Present
- heighten
- Present continuous
- am/is/are heightening
- Present perfect
- have/has heightened
- Present perfect continuous
- have/has been heightening
- Past
- heightened
- Past continuous
- was/were heightening
- Past perfect
- had heightened
- Past perfect continuous
- had been heightening
- Future
- will heighten
- Future continuous
- will be heightening
- Future perfect
- will have heightened
- Future perfect continuous
- will have been heightening
Choose the auxiliary that agrees with your subject. These are constructions of one word, not separate entries.
Usage notes
Verb, transitive or intransitive: heighten; heightens; heightened; heightened; heightening. Future: will heighten. Register: neutral. Commonness: moderately common (qualitative editorial estimate, informed by dictionaries/corpus).
Practice this word in a sentenceYour margin notes
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