Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To make noble: "that chastity of honor . . . which ennobled whatever it touched, and under which vice itself lost half its evil” ( Edmund Burke).
- v. To confer nobility upon: ennoble a prime minister for distinguished service.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To make noble; confer a title of nobility on.
- To dignify; exalt; elevate in degree, excellence, or respect.
- To make notable, famous, or memorable.
Wiktionary
- v. To bestow with nobility, honour or grace.
- v. To ennoble textile fabrics, the industrial processes of dry-cleaning, printing and embossing, and sizing and finishing, which together are known as 'ennobling fabrics'.
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To make noble; to elevate in degree, qualities, or excellence; to dignify.
- v. To raise to the rank of nobility.
WordNet 3.0
- v. confer dignity or honor upon
- v. give a title to someone; make someone a member of the nobility
Etymologies
- Middle English ennoblen, from Old French ennoblir. (Wiktionary)
- Middle English *ennoblen, from Old French ennoblir : en-, causative pref.; see en-1 + noble, noble; see noble. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“By thus declaring himself the follower of so fine a craftsman, Dante suggests, he hopes to "ennoble" his own undertaking.”
“Cilea's alternately swooning, scintillating and thundering score does much to ennoble the overwrought claptrap of the opera's libretto.”
The Washington Post: Review: Washington Concert Opera's 'Adriana Lecouvreur' at Lisner Auditorium
“This Parisian early prototype, however, lacked the spicy seasonings that ennoble the classic cocktail we know today.”
“They believe in the power of the Holy Spirit to correct and ennoble.”
The Huffington Post: John Shore: Why Pastors Struggle With Confronting Domestic Violence
“He does not reflect much on how a double occupation would complicate and perhaps ennoble resistance.”
“Then, we embodying the generosity and engagement that pulsates at the heart of Jewish tradition, this day will truly be a portal to a Shabbat LaShem, a Sabbath of the Lord, and we will be living the kind of covenanted community that can ennoble humanity and all creation.”
The Huffington Post: Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson: Possessing And Releasing
“The music serves to uplift, beautify, and ennoble some other action taking place, and that action itself holds primacy over the music itself.”
“The work will be an output of heroism, and it will ennoble even those who will not know of it.”
“Van Dyck's portraits helped to ennoble many of the plutocrats.”
“I grew up poor, hated, the victim of physical, emotional, and sexual violence, and I know that suffering does not ennoble.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘ennoble’.
-
Gene Wolfe
Please contribute your favorite words from any of Gene Wolfe’s books to this prize-winning list.
In case you come across words in this list which are too commonplace to fit in, please ...gallipot, roost, badelaire, oblesque, execration, dhole, amschaspand, arctother, chalcedony, penitence, asimi, autarch and 839 more...
-
gre2
aberrant, aberration, aboveboard, abrasive, abstemious, acme, admonish, affable, affluent, alacrity, allegory, alleviate and 1523 more...
-
Words I Know
List of most of the words I've learned
garner, abase, abate, abdicate, abduct, aberration, abet, abhor, abide, abject, abjure, abnegation and 1046 more...
-
Vocab++
Words as I learn them.
fetid, mezzanine, hiatus, austerity, subliminal, resplendent, implacable, impugn, debase, exiguous, cirque, holster and 2538 more...
-
Magooosh
impugn, repudiate, sardonic, barnstorm, bemoan, unseemly, cornerstone, noisome, malodorous, retroactively, spuriously, spasmodically and 217 more...
-
stpeter's Words
abase, abasement, abashed, abdicate, aberrant, abeyance, abhor, abhorrent, abide, abject, ablation, abnegation and 3536 more...
-
List for Test Day
heresy, reversion, predilection, pedagogy, disparate, virtuous, refurbish, efficaciously, provenance, heckler, amorphous, epitome and 236 more...
-
Just 'cause I like 'em, E
excoriate, exoskeleton, enclave, endemic, erstwhile, entwine, elliptical, élan, earflaps, earlobe, earthen, earthenware and 238 more...
-
Oblivion
By David Foster Wallace
ossify, reverie, hypergeometric, emetic, mien, cruciform, accreted, perpend, rheostat, predilections, coccyx, hirsute and 178 more...
-
Words of the Day
glabella, chirotony, nook-shotten, crapehanger, filemot, swirlie, egosurf, lexiphanicism, Ruritanian, stichometry, chrononaut, faldstool and 1991 more...
-
New GRE Preparation List
All the words which I encounter during my GRE studies. :)
rhetoric, errant, arrant, artless, artful, ephemeral, libel, rhapsody, cloy, conjecture, relegate, aberrant and 927 more...
-
2008 Wordlist
Hopefully, I'll be using this site for more than one year. It will be fun then to look back and see what new words I found worthy of notice in any given year.
All words spotted in 2008...longanimity, permalancer, breeder, biodegradable, handicapable, gender-neutral, translator, interpreter, translation, interpreting, kleptocracy, fanfiction and 1598 more...
-
Known Good Wrods
ingenuity, efficacy, frivolous, coalesce, implacable, existential, pretense, frenetic, profundity, angst, animus, comity and 3 more...
-
The fountainhead - 1
endorsement, connotation, reverence, grandeur, pertain, realm, arrogate, hesitate, preempt, usurp, exaltation, contemplate and 13 more...
-
fh
connotation, abstraction, preempt, usurp, contemplate, ennoble, exaltation, reverence, uplifting, redeem, frantic, emancipate and 6 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for ennoble.
Comments
No comments yet...
Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.