coarsen

present singular third person coarsens · participle present coarsening · participle past coarsened · past coarsened

1. transitiveTo make (more) coarse.

   Because the wool is of poor quality, it will coarsen the fabric.

   2 more examples

   1941, Emily Carr, Klee Wyck, Chapter 6 "D'Sonoqua," http://www.gutenberg.net.au/ebooks01/0100131h.html She appeared to be neither wooden nor stationary, but a singing spirit, young and fresh, passing through the jungle. No violence coarsened her; no power domineered to wither her. She was graciously feminine.

   […] as the years went by, democracy and its wide audiences tended to broaden and coarsen humor.

   , R. Z. Sheppard, “She-Wits and Funny Persons”, in Time

2. intransitiveTo become (more) coarse.

   […] though her skin had coarsened in the last ten years, the dark red of her cheeks and lips was as vivid as ever.

   1925, Ellen Glasgow, chapter 14, in Barren Ground

   1 more example

   He was intolerable now except under the influence of liquor, and as he seemed to decay and coarsen under her eyes, Gloria's soul and body shrank away from him […]

   1922, F[rancis] Scott Fitzgerald, The Beautiful and Damned, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC, (please specify |book=1, 2, or 3)