1
Improve quality
Make something better or more effective.
Example
New lighting enhanced the legibility of the manuscript.
enhance
/ɪnˈhɑːns/ · en-HANSverb
To improve the quality, value, strength, or effect of something.
Use enhance when the context supports this precise sense: to improve the quality, value, strength, or effect of something.
What enhance Really Means
The word becomes easier to use when its closely related senses are separated and compared.
2
Intensify an effect
Increase the strength of an existing quality.
Example
The silence enhances the scene’s tension.
3
Increase value
Add a feature that makes something more useful.
Example
Annotations enhance the archive’s research value.
Use enhance Naturally
Notice how the surrounding noun or clause reveals the exact shade of meaning.
New lighting enhanced the legibility of the manuscript.
The silence enhances the scene’s tension.
Annotations enhance the archive’s research value.
Precision Matters
Enhance overlaps with several common words, but each carries a different emphasis.
enhance
vs.Means to improve the quality, value, strength, or effect of something.
augment
Means to increase something in size, amount, strength, or value.
enhance
vs.Means to improve the quality, value, strength, or effect of something.
ameliorate
Means to make a bad or unsatisfactory condition better.
enhance
vs.Means to improve the quality, value, strength, or effect of something.
accentuate
Means to make a feature or difference more noticeable or prominent.
enhance
vs.Means to improve the quality, value, strength, or effect of something.
undermine
Means to weaken, erode, or reduce confidence in something.
Test enhance in Context
The map improves an understanding that the report already develops.
1
The map does not replace the report; instead, it helps ___ readers’ understanding of the migration routes.