Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • transitive verb To improve or augment, especially in effectiveness, value, or attractiveness.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To raise up; lift up; elevate.
  • To raise to a higher degree; increase to a higher point; carry upward or to a greater extent; heighten; make greater: as, to enhance prices, or one's reputation or dignity; to enhance misery or sorrow.
  • Synonyms To swell, augment, aggravate.
  • To be raised; swell; grow larger: as, a debt enhances rapidly by compound interest.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • intransitive verb To be raised up; to grow larger.
  • transitive verb obsolete To raise or lift up; to exalt.
  • transitive verb To advance; to augment; to increase; to heighten; to make more costly or attractive; ; hence, also, to render more heinous; to aggravate.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb obsolete To lift, raise up.
  • verb To augment or make something greater.
  • verb To improve something by adding features.
  • verb intransitive To be raised up; to grow larger.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb make better or more attractive
  • verb increase

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English enhauncen, from Anglo-Norman enhauncer, variant of Old French enhaucier, from Vulgar Latin *inaltiāre, from Late Latin inaltāre : Latin in-, causative pref.; see en– + Latin altus, high; see al- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Middle English enhauncen, from Anglo-Norman enhauncer, from Old French enhaucier ("make greater"), from Late Latin *inaltare ("exalt"), from Latin in + altus ("high").

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