weighten

present singular third person weightens · participle present weightening · participle past weightened · past weightened

1. transitiveliteralTo add or give weight to; make heavy

   The idea of all this shifting was simply to weighten the bows, thereby lightening the stern, and so obtain the utmost hydrodynamic benefit.

   2001, Bernard Moitessier, Sailing to the Reefs, page 214

2. figurativelytransitiveTo give support or importance to; make weighty

   In the case of a conflict it either prompts the user for more specific observations, weightens the reliability of the results in order to prefer the most likely one, or tums over the diagnosis task to the particular diagnoses expert agents again.

   1998, Sahin Albayrak, Intelligent Agents for Telecommunications Applications

3. broadlytransitiveTo weigh down

   Efforts were made to cheer the King, and rouse him from the depression with which his sorrows began to weighten him.

   1880, Charles Octavius S. Morgan, Historical traditions and facts relating to Newport and Caerleon

   1 more example

   That saturating hopelessness of the wholly corrupt state, the invisible but dense fog which weightens the movements of all within it, on this night, just before an election, with everyone turning out in a beautiful venue on a sunny evening, that hopelessness seemed imperceptibly to be lifting.

   2017, Dominic Dromgoole, Hamlet: Globe to Globe: Two Years, 190,000 Miles, 197 Countries, One Play

4. intransitiveTo become heavy

   Her lids weightened, slightly hooding violet eyes that mesmerically followed the teardrop trailings.

   1987, Mary Brendan, Beloved avenger, page 29