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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
sweeten
verb
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
sweetened condensed milk
PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
sugar/sweeten the pill
▪ They tried to sweeten the pill. b. They tried to sugar the medicine. 34a.
▪ To sweeten the pill, the government will try to boost the flagging economy in various ways.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ a can of sweetened milk
▪ Add just enough sugar to sweeten the fruit slightly.
▪ Mattel Inc. is expected to sweeten its offer.
▪ Sprinkle sugar onto the cooked fruit to sweeten it.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ A delivery of butter pecan or Neapolitan might sweeten the deal.
▪ Probably honey was used originally to sweeten the apples instead of sugar.
▪ Special offers sweeten the pot for those who wish to depart.
▪ Stir a little honey in to sweeten when ready to eat.
▪ The good light of it came down through the curve of the windscreen, sweetening my bitterness.
▪ They sweeten the spring air of the Great Plains and the Northwest.
▪ They are harvested after frost, the cold sweetening their flavor.
▪ To sweeten the pill, the government will try to boost the flagging economy in various ways.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Sweeten

Sweeten \Sweet"en\, v. i. To become sweet.
--Bacon.

Sweeten

Sweeten \Sweet"en\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Sweetened; p. pr. & vb. n. Sweetening.] [See Sweet, a.]

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

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

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

  4. To make less painful or laborious; to relieve; as, to sweeten the cares of life.
    --Dryden.

    And sweeten every secret tear.
    --Keble.

  5. 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.
    --Dryden.

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

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

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

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
sweeten

1550s (intransitive), from sweet (adj.) + verbal ending -en (1). Transitive sense ("become sweet") is from 1620s. The Middle English form of the verb was simply sweet, from Old English swetan. Related: Sweetened; sweetening.

Wiktionary
sweeten

vb. 1 (context transitive English) To make sweet to the taste. 2 (context transitive English) To make pleasing or grateful to the mind or feelings. 3 (context transitive English) To make mild or kind; to soften. 4 (context transitive English) To make less painful or laborious; to relieve. 5 (context transitive English) To soften to the eye; to make delicate. 6 (context transitive English) To make pure and salubrious by destroying noxious matter. 7 (context transitive English) To make warm and fertile. 8 (context transitive English) To restore to purity; to free from taint. 9 (context transitive English) To make more attractive; (non-gloss definition: said of offers in negotiations.) 10 (context intransitive English) To become sweet.

WordNet
sweeten
  1. v. make sweeter in taste [syn: dulcify, edulcorate, dulcorate] [ant: sour]

  2. make sweeter, more pleasant, or more agreeable; "sweeten a deal"

Wikipedia
Sweeten

Sweeten is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:

  • Madylin Sweeten (born 1991), American actress
  • Sawyer Sweeten (1995–2015), American actor

Usage examples of "sweeten".

Pearl, unpack and hang everything up carefully, iron things that had wrinkled, take a bath, put on the pajamas she usually wore when she slept without me, get in bed with Pearl, have a half cup of frozen chocolate yogurt sweetened with aspartame, and watch a movie.

Likewise a hot infusion, made by pouring half-a-pint of boiling water on a teaspoonful of the bruised seeds will comfort belly ache in the infant, if given in teaspoonful doses sweetened with sugar, and will prove an active remedy in promoting female monthly regularity, if taken at the periodical times, in doses of a wineglassful three times in the day.

Next to the swan-necked silver ewer containing the coffee rested a plate of sliced fresh fruit, a keep-warm basket filled with sweetened bread, and a three-tiered dish containing colorful miniature cakelets and cookies.

Then she took small handfuls of the doughy root starch, mixed with the berries, the sweet, flavorful licorice-fern root stalk, and the sweetening and thickening sap from the birch cambium, and dropped them on the hot rocks.

Before sweetening his cup, she enquired whether he liked his coffee very sweet.

Still, however, he flattered himself that ere long, to her youthful mind and native chearfulness, tranquillity, if not felicity, would imperceptibly return, from such a union for exertion of filial and sisterly duties: that industry would sweeten rest, virtue gild privation, and self-approvance convert every sacrifice into enjoyment.

I hated the feel of the gol under my feet, the dark cloying scent that seemed to sweeten my tongue.

When the immense teak tub was full of water, perfumed with miada grass and sweetened with gomuti sugar, we both stripped off our silks and got into it together.

As if to sweeten the bitter pill I had to swallow, he told me how the Empress of Austria had ordered him to leave Vienna in twenty-four hours, merely because he had complimented the Archduchess Christina on behalf of Prince Louis of Wurtemberg.

I can easily contrive to drink my coffee well sweetened, and to make him drain the bitter cup.

The sweetened varieties have proved popular with American eaters, and Hoisin sauce is always served with Peking Duck in this country.

It is not blasphemy to hope that Heaven More perfectly will give those nameless joys Which throb within the pulses of the blood And sweeten all that bitterness which Earth Infuses in the heaven-born soul.

Richard brought them their coffee and kirsch, and Condy showed Blix how to burn a lump of sugar and sweeten the coffee with syrup.

Given the interest he has in you with lagniappe like Rallen thrown in to sweeten the bait?

When cool cover with a meringue or with whipped cream sweetened and flavored with vanilla.