SWEETEN • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Sweeten

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/swˈitən/ Listen

verb

Sweeten v. t. (past & past part. sweetened; pres. part. sweetening)

To make sweet to the taste; as, to sweeten tea.

To make pleasing or grateful to the mind or feelings; as, to sweeten life; to sweeten friendship.

To make mild or kind; to soften; as, to sweeten the temper.

To make less painful or laborious; to relieve; as, to sweeten the cares of life. "And sweeten every secret tear."

To soften to the eye; to make delicate. "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."

To make pure and salubrious by destroying noxious matter; as, to sweeten rooms or apartments that have been infected; to sweeten the air.

To make warm and fertile; opposed to sour; as, to dry and sweeten soils.

To restore to purity; to free from taint; as, to sweeten water, butter, or meat.

Sweeten v. i. To become sweet.

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Etymology of 'Sweeten'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Sweeten" Quotes from Famous Books

... considered to enable its readers to place a more lenient construction than Hallam's even upon the former sentence. Ralegh merely was pursuing his object, with some carelessness, after his manner, as to form. Throughout he endeavoured to sweeten advice he knew to be unpalatable, by assurances that the King need not fear his prerogative would be permanently impaired by deference to the representatives of the people. The language is, for the nineteenth ...

— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing

... shepherdesses tending pigs,—with boats sailing in the air, and houses built in the clouds, and sundry other ingenious Dutch fancies. The beaux distinguished themselves by their adroitness in replenishing this pot from a huge copper teakettle. To sweeten the beverage, a lump of sugar was laid beside each cup, and the company alternately nibbled and sipped with great decorum; until an improvement was introduced by a shrewd and economic old lady, which was to suspend, ...

— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker

... preserved from fermentation? whereas grape jellies are made by boiling the grapes until they are well cooked, then rubbing or squeezing all the pulp and skins practicable through a colander, sieve, or coarsely-woven strainer; and then sugar is added to sweeten and aid in forming a jelly. Condensed wines will dissolve in water as we are told the ancient thick wines did, but grape jellies will do so only very imperfectly, for they are composed largely of ...

— Personal Experience of a Physician • John Ellis

... that a rebuke was in store for him for his negligence during the walk on Saturday; and this anticipation did not sweeten his mood. He kept the little boys waiting, though Holt was trembling very much, and still weak from his illness. It occurred to the usher that another person might be made uncomfortable; and he immediately acted on the idea. He had ...

— The Crofton Boys • Harriet Martineau

... away our misery far from Thee? And Thou abidest in Thyself, but we are tossed about in divers trials. And yet unless we mourned in Thine ears, we should have no hope left. Whence then is sweet fruit gathered from the bitterness of life, from groaning, tears, sighs, and complaints? Doth this sweeten it, that we hope Thou hearest? This is true of prayer, for therein is a longing to approach unto Thee. But is it also in grief for a thing lost, and the sorrow wherewith I was then overwhelmed? For I neither hoped he should return to life nor ...

— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine

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