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Escalate vs Enhance - What's the difference?

escalate | enhance |

As verbs the difference between escalate and enhance

is that escalate is to increase (something) in extent or intensity; to intensify or step up while enhance is (obsolete) to lift, raise up.

escalate

English

Verb

(transitive'' and ''intransitive )
  • to increase (something) in extent or intensity; to intensify or step up
    • Violence escalated during the election.
    The shooting escalated the existing hostility.
  • in technical support, to transfer a telephone caller to the next higher level of authority
    • The tech 1 escalated the caller to a tech 2.

    Derived terms

    * deescalate

    Related terms

    * escalator English ergative verbs

    enhance

    English

    Alternative forms

    * inhance * enhaunce * inhaunce

    Verb

    (enhanc)
  • (obsolete) To lift, raise up.
  • * 1590 , Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene , I.i:
    • nought aghast, his mightie hand enhaunst : / The stroke down from her head vnto her shoulder glaunst.
    (Wyclif Bible)
  • To augment or make something greater.
  • * Southey
    • The reputation of ferocity enhanced the value of their services, in making them feared as well as hated.
  • * 2000 , Mordecai Roshwald, Liberty: Its Meaning and Scope , page 155
    • A hereditary monarch relies on pomp and ceremony, which enhance the respect for the institution
  • To improve something by adding features.
  • * 1986 , Maggie Righetti, Knitting in Plain English , page 192
    • A pom-pom to top off a stocking cap, a fringe to feather the edge of a shawl, tassels to define the points of an afghan, these are just a few of the delightful little goodies that enhance handknit things.
  • To be raised up; to grow larger.
    • A debt enhances rapidly by compound interest.

    Synonyms

    * See also