English Explanatory Dictionary

sweeten

English dictionary entry

Meanings

verb
  1. To make sweet to the taste.
  2. To make (more) pleasant or to the mind or feelings.
  3. To make mild or kind; to soften.
  4. To make less painful or laborious; to relieve.
  5. To soften to the eye; to make delicate.
  6. To make pure and healthful by destroying noxious matter.
  7. To make warm and fertile.
  8. To raise the pH of (a soil) by adding alkali.
  9. To restore to purity; to free from taint.
  10. To make more attractive; said of offers in negotiations.
  11. To become sweet.
  12. To supplement (a composition) with additional instruments, especially strings.
name
  1. A surname.

Pronunciation

/ˈswiːtən/ [ˈswiːtn̩] [ˈswiːʔn̩] en-us-sweeten.ogg en-us-sweeten2.ogg

Word forms

sweeten sweetens sweetening sweetened

Etymology

From sweet + -en. Eclipsed non-native Middle English doucen and endoucen, borrowed from Old French adoucir and endoucir (“to sweeten”).

Antonyms

sour

Derived words

artificially sweetened back-sweeten besweeten outsweeten oversweeten presweeten resweeten sweetener sweeten the pill sweeten the pot sweeten up unsweeten
This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.
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