Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use heighten in a sentence

40 example sentences · verb

Heighten means to make high; to raise higher; to elevate. Example: “High-profile abandonments are harder to infiltrate for urban explorers due to their heightened security.”

Examples of heighten by meaning

verbTo make high; to raise higher; to elevate.

  • Black Bridge, near Machynlleth, is being heightened by one metre in a £3.6 million project to reduce delays caused by flooding.2021 June 2, “Network News: Cambrian Line bridge is raised”, in RAIL, number 932, page 23

verbTo advance, increase, augment, make larger, more intense, stronger etc.

  • to heighten beauty
  • to heighten a flavor or a tint
  • to heighten awareness

More sentences with heighten

  • High-profile abandonments are harder to infiltrate for urban explorers due to their heightened security.From the entry abandonment
  • Brexit has rocked the foundations of the nation and plunged everyone into a state of heightened constitutional anxiety.From the entry constitutional
  • Alicia hated the person who had invented pan and scan, since the heightened panning effect aggravated her nausea when watching action movies.From the entry pan and scan
  • These have recently widened to include foreign nationals and firms, heightening worries in the international business community.2023 November 15, Tessa Wong, “Xi Jinping arrives in US as his Chinese Dream sputters”, in BBC, archived from the original on 25 Nov 2023. From the entry crackdown
  • Sometimes in a heightened state of partydom, other times in comparative calmness.2015, Stuart Coupe, Gudinski: The Godfather of Australian Rock. From the entry partydom
  • This is a society at war with itself and heightens the impression of broken Britain.2010, Turk182, “Kent Police Appeal for Specials Who Like Nicking People”, in uk.legal (Usenet). From the entry Broken Britain
  • And I didn't want to be too kitchen-sinky, because it's a heightened reality."2007 April 29, Stephanie Bunbury, “Tide and emotions”, in The Age. From the entry kitchen-sinky
  • Some crusaders blame the Portuguese for not sharing Britain’s heightened state of paedophile-phobia.2007 May 11, Mick Hume, “Portugal: let’s all make it worse”, in The Times, London: News UK, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 05…. From the entry paedophile-phobia
  • I can work out expensively, particularly with the heightened tempo of war.1946, George Johnston, Skyscrapers in the Mist, page 88. From the entry expensively
  • Artificial intelligence has heightened chess’s old fear of "draw death", where the game is analysed to the degree that wins disappear.2021 November 26, John Gapper, “Chess faces stalemate in its match with machines”, in Financial Times. From the entry draw death
  • This event heightened the anxiety of the men in getting things finished on the house in preparation for departure.2014, Glenn Crumb, Marvin Crumb, Crumbs Along the Trail, Xlibris Corporation, →ISBN, page 114. From the entry skiff
  • What if the death of Britannia heightened awareness of the non-political culture that spans the entire archipelago – the islandic world?2014 July 23, James Meek, The Guardian. From the entry islandic
  • I have experienced it as a state of heightened awareness where one possibility after another presents itself like an unfolding path.2010, Melinda Buckwalter, Composing while Dancing. From the entry besonged
  • Some dealers also took advantage of heightened demand for Harleys to charge more, a move that may have done long-lasting harm.2009 March 22, Susanna Hamner, “Harley, You’re Not Getting Any Younger”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 09 Nov 2020. From the entry heightened
  • The heightened attention to issues of representation is precipitated, in good part, by the advent of new, supervisual media.2009, Geoffrey H. Hartman, A Scholar's Tale: Intellectual Journey of a Displaced Child of Europe. From the entry supervisual
  • Differentiating between a bias crime and a nonbias crime can be difficult, particularly in an atmosphere of heightened racial tensions.2007, Steven M Chermak, Frankie Y Bailey, Crimes and Trials of the Century. From the entry nonbias
  • Yet, Manet heightens its effect by performing the clever ocular trick of practically twinning her with her pictorial counterpart, Madame Lejosne.2006, Aruna D'Souza, Tom McDonough, Tom Mc Donough, The Invisible Flâneuse?: Gender, Public Space, and Visual Culture in…. From the entry twin
  • Each emotion is heightened, overemphasized with cubist contortions.2005 July 8, Ned Martel, “Manically Happy Campers and Rich but Vicious Cats”, in The New York Times. From the entry discombobulation
  • There is a heightened sense of anticipation among the musicians.'2002 August 25, Kate Connolly, Amelia Hill, “Rattles^([sic – meaning Rattle]) fires parting shot at Brit Art bratpack”, in Alan…. From the entry make no bones about
  • Separated from the street by a spacious yard, the two-story building was further heightened by a gabled roof.1999 April 1, Judy Mattivi Morley, Albuquerque, New Mexico, or Anywhere, USA?: Historic Preservation and the Construction of Civic…. From the entry puebloization
  • This 'series' link will be heightened by her rendition of 'Do You Know How Christmas's Trees Are Grown.'1998 November 22, Rhino, “TWINE Update”, in alt.fan.james-bond (Usenet). From the entry Christmas's tree
  • Or perhaps Hull merely rewrote Kearney's incoherent harangues, polishing their language, heightening their ferocity, after they were delivered?1997, Kevin Starr, Endangered Dreams: The Great Depression in California, page 11. From the entry harangues
  • At this party, some local Spartists differed on fundamental issues of principle, their collective consciousness heightened by quantities of drink.1982, Private Eye. From the entry Spartist
  • Diabetics are especially likely to have moniliasis in these areas because of heightened glucose levels in the perspiration.1965, John Walter Wilson, Orda Allen Plunkett, The Fungous Diseases of Man, →ISBN, page 168. From the entry moniliasis
  • Impressive processions and sacred hymns, banners, crucifices, and assaults upon the Jews heightened the effect of his impassioned appeals.1907, George Frederick Abbott, Israel in Europe, page 152. From the entry crucifices
  • This is especially true of poets, who recognize that the unusualness of the archaic word will sometimes heighten the poetic effect.1900, Mary Hall Leonard, “The Revival of Old English Words”, in The Writer, volume 13, page 23. From the entry archaic
  • As Black Sabbath’s doomsayer-in-chief, Osbourne could summon a true sense of terror in his keening cries in a way that heightened the band’s muscular dirges.2025 July 22, Kory Grow, “Ozzy Osbourne obituary: The Godfather of Heavy Metal who changed the world”, in Rolling Stone. From the entry keening
  • The film itself is stark, minimalist, a single character in a non-descript liminal space, somewhat created in a vacuum of sublime and heightened intimacy.2023 February 16–21, Lynne Robinson, quoting John Biscello, “Behind the scenes of ‘The Bride’ with John Biscello”, in Tempo (Taos News)…. From the entry non-descript
  • Even the cast is heightened, so that the tiniest blink-and-you'll miss-it role is played by the likes of Willem Dafoe, Saoirse Ronan and Henry Winkler.2021 July 12, Nicholas Barber, “The French Dispatch: Four stars for Wes Anderson's latest”, in BBC. From the entry blink-and-you'll-miss-it
  • It's why a sprinkle of Parm on just about anything heightens that dish's flavor; it's why grilled smoky mushrooms taste so good.2019, Raquel Pelzel, Umami Bomb: 75 Vegetarian Recipes That Explode with Flavor, Workman Publishing, →ISBN, page 2. From the entry umami
  • She remained stone-still, ready for anything, sending her heightened senses in search of who or what was encroaching on her personal space.2015, Sara Humphreys, Vampires Never Cry Wolf. From the entry stone-still
  • A kind of dark pallor lent him a ghostly appearance in the uncertain light, an effect heightened by the satanic darkness of his lowering brows.2013, Robert E Howard, Red Shadows, →ISBN. From the entry lowering
  • Balance can be used to heighten matched pairs of ideas, as in the maxim "one should eat to live, not live to eat."2013, Carl H. Klaus, A Self Made of Words: Crafting a Distinctive Persona in Nonfiction Writing, →ISBN. From the entry eat to live, not live to eat
  • This lack of familiarity, inexperience and knowledge imbalance heightens the potential for misbuying and so consumers have for many years made recourse to financial advice.2013, Christine Ennew, Nigel Waite, Roisin Waite, Financial Services Marketing. From the entry misbuying
  • Their heightened enjoyment Iser explains in terms of the protensive tension provoked by the strategic interruption of the narrative at crucial moments .2010, Robert Allen, Channels of Discourse, Reassembled, page 110. From the entry protensive
  • As others debate solutions ranging from heightened security to increased vigilance against bullying, Lasee has cut through the namby and the pamby.2006 October 13, Leonard Pitts Jr., “In My Opinion: Giving teachers guns a simple but stupid idea”, in The Miami Herald, final edition…. From the entry pamby

Meaning of heighten

  1. verb To make high; to raise higher; to elevate.
  2. verb To advance, increase, augment, make larger, more intense, stronger etc.

Full definition of heighten

Questions about heighten in a sentence

How do you use heighten in a sentence?
Heighten is used as a verb. For example: “High-profile abandonments are harder to infiltrate for urban explorers due to their heightened security.”
What is a short sentence with heighten?
“to heighten awareness”
What does heighten mean?
Heighten means to make high; to raise higher; to elevate.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: heighten (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use heighten in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/heighten. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.