accentuate
To accentuate something is to emphasize it. If you want someone to know you’re from the American South, accentuate your accent by laying it on thick, y’all.
When you accentuate, you draw attention to something. You could wear a green shirt to accentuate your green eyes, for example. You can also accentuate words when you give them added stress. An actor might accentuate certain words in a monologue in order to emphasize the character’s anger. This word traces all the way back to the Latin verb canere, “to sing.”
Definitions of accentuate
stress or single out as important
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types:
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background, downplay, play downunderstate the importance or quality of
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bring out, set offdirect attention to, as if by means of contrast
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re-emphasise, re-emphasizeemphasize anew
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bear downpay special attention to
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topicalizeemphasize by putting heavy stress on or by moving to the front of the sentence
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point upemphasize, especially by identification
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drive home, press home, ram homemake clear by special emphasis and try to convince somebody of something
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emphasise, emphasize, underline, underscoregive extra weight to (a communication)
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pick uplift out or reflect from a background
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wave offdismiss as insignificant
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foreground, highlight, play up, spotlightmove into the foreground to make more visible or prominent
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raisebring (a surface or a design) into relief and cause to project
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soft-pedalplay down or obscure
put stress on; utter with an accent
Word Family