Intensify

How to spell intensify

9 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce intensify

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does intensify mean?

1. verbTo make or become stronger, greater, or more extreme.

Intensify in a sentence

• The new advertising campaign should intensify demand for the product.

• Long working hours can intensify feelings of stress at home.

Where does intensify come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This verb is built from the adjective 'intense' joined to the productive suffix '-ify', which comes from the Latin facere, meaning 'to make' or 'to do', and which English uses to form verbs meaning 'to cause to become'. 'Intense' itself goes back to the Latin intensus, the past participle of intendere, literally 'to stretch out' or 'to strain towards', from the prefix in- 'towards' and tendere 'to stretch'. The original image is physical: something pulled taut, stretched tight, and that idea of straining or heightening survives in the modern sense of making something stronger or more concentrated. The same tendere root sits inside relatives such as 'tension', 'extend' and 'tendon', all of which carry that core notion of stretching. 'Intensify' entered English in the early 1800s as writers needed a single word for the act of making feelings, efforts or conditions more extreme.

How the word is built

• intens- (from Latin intensus: stretched, strained)
• -ify (verb-forming suffix: to make or cause to become)