different between elevate vs aggrandize

English

Etymology

From Latin elevatus, past participle of elevare (“to raise, lift up”), from e (“out”) + levare (“to make light, to lift”), from levis (“light”); see levity and lever.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /??l?ve?t/

Verb

elevate (third-person singular simple present elevates, present participle elevating, simple past and past participle elevated)

1. (transitive) To raise (something) to a higher position.

   Synonyms: lift, raise

   Antonyms: drop, lower

   • 1534, William Marshall and George Joye, A Prymer in Englyshe, London: William Marshall,^[1]

     The Grace or Blessynge of the table to be sayed of chyldren standynge before it, thyr handes eleuated and ioyned to gyder

   • c. 1610, William Shakespeare, The Winter’s Tale, Act V, Scene 2,^[2]

     She had one eye declined for the loss of her husband, another elevated that the oracle was fulfilled:

   • 1750, Samuel Johnson, The Rambler, No. 25, 12 June, 1750, Volume 1, London: J. Payne and J. Bouquet, 1752, p. 216,^[3]

     We know that a few strokes of the axe will lop a cedar; but what arts of cultivation can elevate a shrub?

   • 1896, Joseph Conrad, An Outcast of the Islands, London: T. Fisher Unwin, Part 2, Chapter 5, p. 138,^[4]

     Abdulla expressed his surprise by elevating his eyebrows.

2. (transitive) To promote (someone) to a higher rank.

   Synonyms: exalt, promote

   Antonym: demote

   • 1682, Aphra Behn, The Roundheads or, The Good Old Cause, London: D. Brown et al., Act I, Scene 1, p. 6,^[5]

     Hard Fate of Greatness, We so highly Elevated

     Are more expos’d to Censure than the little ones,

   • 1792, Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, London: J. Johnson, Part 1, Chapter 1, p. 24,^[6]

     Nothing can set the regal character in a more contemptible point of view, than the various crimes that have elevated men to the supreme dignity.

   • 1961, Joseph Heller, Catch-22, New York: Dell, Chapter 29, p. 334,^[7]

     […] that’s the way things go when you elevate mediocre people to positions of authority.

   • 2014, A. D. Wright, The Early Modern Papacy

     Much has also been made recently of the distorting effects exerted on the administration of Urban VIII by the interests of the Barberini nephews, especially of the two elevated to cardinal status.

   • 2014, Guy W. Lecky-Thompson, Inside SharePoint 2007 Administration (page 55)

     At that point, you have to elevate the account's rights, activate the feature, and then demote the account again.

3. (transitive) To confer honor or nobility on (someone).

   Synonyms: ennoble, exalt, honor

   • 1591, Edmund Spenser, “Virgils Gnat” in Complaints, London: William Ponsonbie,^[8]

     That none, whom fortune freely doth aduaunce,

     Himselfe therefore to heauen should eleuate:

     For loftie type of honour through the glaunce

     Of enuies dart, is downe in dust prostrate;

4. (transitive) To make (something or someone) more worthy or of greater value.
   • 1682, John Dryden, The Medal, Edinburgh, “Epistle to the Whigs,”^[9]

     […] if you encourage a young Beginner, who knows but he may elevate his stile a little,

   • 1768, William Gilpin, An Essay upon Prints, London: J. Robson, Chapter 1, p. 33,^[10]

     He is the true artist, who copies nature; but, where he finds her mean, elevates her from his own ideas of beauty.

   • 1850, Charles Dickens, David Copperfield, Leipzig: Bernhard Tauchnitz, Volume 2, Chapter 4, p. 60,^[11]

     You can’t think how it elevates him in my opinion, to know for certain that he’s really conscientious!

5. (transitive) To direct (the mind, thoughts, etc.) toward more worthy things.
   • 1665, Robert Boyle, Occasional Reflections upon Several Subjects, London: Henry Herringman, Section 4, Chapter 4, pp. 73-74,^[12]

     […] the devout Christian improves the Blessings he receives of this inferiour World, to elevate his mind above it:

   • 1999, Ahdaf Soueif, The Map of Love, New York: Anchor Books, 2000, Chapter 18,^[13]

     On the whole I would regard serious art as a means to elevate the emotions and educate the spirit […]

6. (transitive) To increase the intensity or degree of (something).

   Synonyms: increase, raise

   Antonyms: decrease, diminish, lower, reduce

   1. (dated) To increase the loudness of (a sound, especially one's voice).
      • 1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, London: A. Millar, Volume 5, Book 14, Chapter 10, p. 191,^[14]

        […] the Uncle had more than once elevated his Voice, so as to be heard down Stairs;
7. (transitive, obsolete) To lift the spirits of (someone)

   Synonyms: cheer up, elate

   Antonyms: depress, sadden

   • 1667, John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book 8, lines 633-634,^[15]

     […] Hope elevates, and joy

     Bright’ns his Crest,

   • 1759, Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Edinburgh: A. Kincaid and J. Bell, Part 1, Section 2, Chapter 1, p. 20,^[16]

     It gives us the spleen […] to see another too happy or too much elevated, as we call it, with any little piece of good fortune.

8. (dated, colloquial, humorous) To intoxicate in a slight degree; to make (someone) tipsy.
   • 1755, George Colman and Bonnell Thornton, The Connoisseur, No. 91, 23 October, 1755, Volume 2, London: R. Baldwin, 1756, p. 557,^[17]

     Steele entertained them till he was tipsy; when the same wine that stupified him, only served to elevate Addison, who took up the ball just as Steele dropt it, and kept it up for the rest of the evening.

   • 1791, James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson, London: Charles Dilly, Volume 2, 1778,^[18]

     [Johnson,] from drinking only water, supposed every body who drank wine to be elevated

   • 1822, Walter Scott, Peveril of the Peak, Edinburgh: Archibald, Constable, Volume 1, Chapter 3, p. 92,^[19]

     […] the elevated Cavaliers […] sent to Roger Raine of the Peveril Arms […] for two tubs of merry stingo

9. (obsolete, Latinism) To attempt to make (something) seem less important, remarkable, etc.

   Synonyms: lessen, detract, disparage

   • 1660, Jeremy Taylor, Ductor Dubitantium, London: Richard Royston, Volume 1, Chapter 4, Rule 2, p. 126,^[20]

     […] the Arabian Physicians […] endevour to elevate and lessen the thing [i.e. belief in the virgin birth of Jesus], by saying, It is not wholly beyond the force of nature, that a Virgin should conceive […]

Related terms

• elevatable
• elevation
• elevator
• elevatory

Translations

Adjective

elevate (comparative more elevate, superlative most elevate)

1. (obsolete) Elevated; raised aloft.
   • 1548, Edward Hall, The Union of the Two Noble and Illustre Families of Lancastre and Yorke, London: Richard Grafton, Henry VII, year 6,^[21]

     The sayde crosse was .iii. tymes deuoutly eleuate, and at euery exaltacion, ye Moores beyng within the cytie, roared, howled and cryed,

   • 1667, John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book 2, lines 567-578,^[22]

     Others apart sat on a Hill retir’d,

     In thoughts more elevate,

Further reading

• elevate in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• elevate in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

Italian

Verb

elevate

1. second-person plural present indicative of elevare
2. second-person plural imperative of elevare
3. feminine plural of elevato

Latin

Verb

?lev?te

1. second-person plural present active imperative of ?lev?

English

Alternative forms

• aggrandise (mainly British)

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /????ænda??z/

Etymology

From French agrandir.

Verb

aggrandize (third-person singular simple present aggrandizes, present participle aggrandizing, simple past and past participle aggrandized)

1. (transitive) To make great; to enlarge; to increase.

   to aggrandize one's authority, distress

   • 1624, Richard Montagu, Immediate Addresse vnto God Alone, London: Matthew Lownes and William Barret, p. 19,^[1]

     [They] doe adde vnto the bitternesse of that Day, and agrandise the heauie weight of trouble.

   • 1741, Isaac Watts, The Improvement of the Mind, London: James Brackstone, Chapter 20, p. 355,^[2]

     In Heroic Verse, but especially in the grander Lyrics, there are sometimes such noble Elevations of Thought and Passion as illuminate all Things around us, and convey to the Soul most exalted and magnificent Images and sublime Sentiments: These furnish us with glorious Springs and Mediums to raise and aggrandize our Conceptions […]

   • 1789, William Gilpin, Observations, relative chiefly to picturesque beauty, made in the year 1776, on several parts of Great Britain; particularly the High-lands of Scotland, London: R. Blamire, Volume 2, “Account of the Prints,” p. ii,^[3]

     […] on so small a scale, it would be impossible to give an adequate idea of a grand scene. […] Were it painted indeed with exactness on a pane of glass in a window, and the eye brought to it, under the deception of it’s being a real view; the imagination might aggrandize it.

   • 1970, Benjamin I. Schwartz, Communism in China: Ideology in Flux, New York: Atheneum, p. 10,^[4]

     […] the relations of ideas to power may assume infinite variations. The tendency may be to aggrandize power at all cost, to aggrandize power but to calculate soberly the risks involved, to conserve existing power, or even to yield power.

2. (transitive) To make great or greater in power, rank, honor, or wealth (applied to persons, countries, etc.).
   • 1635, David Person, Varieties, London: Thomas Alchorn, “To the Right Honovrable Thomas Earle of Hadington,”^[5]

     […] the aggrandizing of your estate by well managed fortune […] may well set out your praises to the world […]

   • 1759, David Hume, The History of England: Under the House of Tudor, London: A. Millar, Volume 1, Chapter 4, p. 165,^[6]

     […] under pretence of securing the purity of religion, he had laid a scheme of aggrandizing his own family, by extending its dominions over all Germany.

   • 1815, Jane Austen, Emma, Volume 1, Chapter 16,^[7]

     He only wanted to aggrandise and enrich himself; and if Miss Woodhouse of Hartfield, the heiress of thirty thousand pounds, were not quite so easily obtained as he had fancied, he would soon try for Miss Somebody else with twenty, or with ten.

   • 1855, William H. Prescott, History of the Reign of Philip the Second, King of Spain, Boston: Phillips, Sampson, Volume 1, Book 1, Chapter 2, p. 69,^[8]

     […] he seems never to have revived his schemes for aggrandizing his son by securing to him the succession to the empire.

3. (transitive) To make appear great or greater; to exalt.
   • 1750, Samuel Johnson, The Rambler, No. 56, 29 September, 1750, in The Rambler, London: J. Payne & J. Bouquet, 1752, Volume 2, p. 179,^[9]

     […] they contrive to make all approaches to them difficult and vexatious, and imagine that they aggrandize themselves by wasting the time of others in useless attendance, by mortifying them with slights, and teazing them with affronts.

   • 1833, Charles Lamb, Essays of Elia, “Popular Fallacies” in The Works of Charles Lamb, New York: Harper, Volume 2, p. 302,^[10]

     The first thing to aggrandize a man in his own conceit, is to conceive of himself as neglected.

   • 1881, Mark Twain, “Plymouth Rock and the Pilgrims,” address at the first annual dinner, N.E. Society, Philadelphia, 22 December, 1881, in Mark Twain’s Speeches, New York: Harper, 1910, p. 18,^[11]

     Why, to be celebrating the mere landing of the Pilgrims—to be trying to make out that this most natural and simple and customary procedure was an extraordinary circumstance—a circumstance to be amazed at, and admired, aggrandized and glorified, at orgies like this for two hundred and sixty years—hang it, a horse would have known enough to land; a horse […]

   • 2015, “Sandy Hook committee to propose ban on guns that fire more than 10 rounds,” The Guardian, 16 January, 2015,^[12]

     They noted the use of [the gunman’s] name is hurtful to the victims’ families and using it could assist anyone who might want to aggrandize his actions.

4. (intransitive, rare) To increase or become great.
   • 1946, Office of United States Chief of Counsel for Prosecution of Axis Criminality, Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, Volume 2, Washington: United States Government Printing Office, p. 317,^[13]

     The generals, like Hitler, wanted Germany to aggrandize at the expense of neighboring countries, and to do so if necessary by force or threat of force.

Related terms

Translations