Definition of "sweeten"

sweeten

/ˈswiːtən/

verb
third-person singular simple present sweetens, present participle sweetening, simple past and past participle sweetened
1. (transitive) To make sweet to the taste.
2. (transitive) To make (more) pleasant or to the mind or feelings.
3. (transitive) To make mild or kind; to soften.
4. (transitive) To make less painful or laborious; to relieve.
  Quotations
  Our God to bless out home delights, / And sweeten every secret tear:— [...]
  1827, [John Keble], “Last Sunday after Trinity”, in The Christian Year: Thoughts in Verse for the Sundays and Holydays throughout the Year, volume II, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] [B]y W. Baxter, for J. Parker; and C[harles] and J[ohn] Rivington, […], page 99
5. (transitive) To soften to the eye; to make delicate.
  Quotations
  Correggio has made his memory immortal by the strength he has given to his figures, and by sweetening his lights and shadows, and melting them into each other.
  1695, John Dryden, De Arte Graphica
6. (transitive) To make pure and salubrious by destroying noxious matter.
7. (transitive) To make warm and fertile.
8. (transitive) To restore to purity; to free from taint.
9. (transitive) To make more attractive; said of offers in negotiations.
10. (intransitive) To become sweet.
11. (music, transitive) To supplement (a composition) with additional instruments, especially strings.
  Quotations
  In most popular music the bowed strings usually play long, sustained, sweeping parts, and are sometimes added to a vocal track later in a process known as sweetening.
  2011, Russell Dean Vines, Composing Digital Music For Dummies, page 326
  Rather than employ strings to “sweeten” the songs, Motown's arrangements used strings as a timbral layer, in conjunction with syncopated horn lines, for a fuller sound; […]
  2014, Mellonee V. Burnim, Portia K. Maultsby, African American Music: An Introduction, page 259

Definition of "sweeten"

sweeten

verb

Quotations

Quotations

Quotations