Enhance

ɪnˈhæns

verb

to improve or increase the quality, value, or attractiveness of something

The word 'enhance' comes from the Middle French word 'enhaucier,' meaning 'to raise or elevate.' Enhancing something involves elevating it in some way, making it better or more valuable.

One enjoyment was certain—that of suitableness as companions; a suitableness which comprehended health and temper to bear inconveniences—cheerfulness to enhance every pleasure—and affection and intelligence, which might supply it among themselves if there were disappointments abroad.

Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice

Even the boisterous winds unanimously came forth from their mystic homes, and blustered about as if to enhance by their aid the wildness of the scene.

Mark Twain

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

But the smile did not enhance Véra’s beauty as smiles generally do; on the contrary it gave her an unnatural, and therefore unpleasant, expression.

Leo Tolstoy

War and Peace

You needed some sort of distinction in the Twins, else they were liable to forget you were alive, but a reputation as the biggest drinker in the castle had done little to enhance his prospects, he’d found.

George R. R. Martin

A Storm of Swords

Cocaine does not enhance the appetite, and neither does terror.

King, Stephen

The Stand

.”“I won’t say a word, sir,” said Riddle, and he left, but not before Harry had glimpsed his face, which was full of that same wild happiness it had worn when he had first found out that he was a wizard, the sort of happiness that did not enhance his handsome features, but made them, somehow, less human. . . .

J. K. Rowling

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

When, as I opine, in the course of time, the true nature of spermaceti became known, its original name was still retained by the dealers; no doubt to enhance its value by a notion so strangely significant of its scarcity.

Herman Melville

Moby Dick

The very circumstances which inflict on you, as a principal in the tragic scene enacted here, such painful emotions, are to me, on the contrary, a source of something like contentment, and serve but to enhance the value of this dwelling in my estimation.

Alexandre Dumas

The Count of Monte Cristo

how little does the memory of these human inhabitants enhance the beauty of the landscape!

Henry David Thoreau

Walden

At the same time it would enormously enhance, what Archbishop Laud so rightly insisted on, the ‘beauty of holiness’ in the few incorrigibles who could not be deterred.” “In hell, it seems,” said Priscilla, reading in her Sunday paper, “the children amuse themselves by flaying lambs alive.” “Ah, but, dear lady, that’s only a symbol,” exclaimed Mr. Barbecue-Smith, “a material symbol of a h-piritual truth.

Aldous Huxley

Crome Yellow

It will actually enhance their sense of duty.

Neal Stephenson

Snow Crash

Yet the craving for solitude seemed part of the delusion of self-sufficiency, a factitious making-rare of the person to enhance its strangeness in its own estimation.

T. E. Lawrence

Seven Pillars of Wisdom

We will also explain archaic or unusual words and names in The Lord of the Rings, explore literary and historical influences, note connections with Tolkien’s other writings, and comment on differences between its drafts and published form, on questions of language, and on much else that we hope will interest readers and enhance their enjoyment of Tolkien’s masterpiece.

J. R. R. Tolkien

The Fellowship of the Ring

Besides, fellow ought to support the home team.” He did go and support the team, and enhance the glory of Zenith, by yelling “Attaboy!” and “Rotten!” He performed the rite scrupulously.

Sinclair Lewis

Babbitt

Doubtful he stood, if instant to embrace His aged limbs, to kiss his reverend face, With eager transport to disclose the whole, And pour at once the torrent of his soul.— Not so: his judgment takes the winding way Of question distant, and of soft essay; More gentle methods on weak age employs: And moves the sorrows to enhance the joys.

Homer

The Odyssey

He had deserted her for other women, and this sentimental celebrity did not fail to enhance his artistic reputation.

Gustave Flaubert

Madame Bovary

I slurp my coffee as we travel, finding that the cream and sugar greatly enhance its flavor.

Suzanne Collins

Mockingjay

The long time and the great expense which must be laid out in their education, when combined with this circumstance, necessarily enhance still further the price of their labour.

Adam Smith

The Wealth of Nations