This resource shows you one simple shortcut to expand your vocabulary easily and immediately.
The trick is to add the suffix/ending ‘en’
to adjectives or nouns to create useful verbs. Since you already know the meaning of most of these basic adjectives and nouns, the hard part is done! When you add ‘en’
, it creates a verb which means to make more of the quality that the adjective or noun describes.
short
+ en
= shorten
The new verb shorten
means to make something shorter.
length
+ en
= lengthen
The new verb lengthen
means to increase something in length.
It’s that simple!
Size | |
---|---|
short | shorten |
wide | widen |
deep | deepen |
broad | broaden |
length | lengthen |
height | heighten |
Color | |
---|---|
white | whiten |
dark | darken |
light | lighten |
red | redden |
bright | brighten |
Other | |
---|---|
hard | harden |
soft | soften |
thick | thicken |
quick | quicken |
damp | dampen |
sharp | sharpen |
weak | weaken |
quiet | quieten |
fresh | freshen |
smart | smarten |
straight | straighten |
rough | roughen |
tough | toughen |
sweet | sweeten |
moist | moisten |
loose | loosen |
tight | tighten |
worse | worsen |
ripe | ripen |
slack | slacken |
dead | deaden |
less | lessen |
sad | sadden |
glad | gladden |
flat | flatten |
stiff | stiffen |
deaf | deafen |
sick | sicken |
fat | fatten |
awake | awaken |
great | greaten |
mad | madden |
coarse | coarsen |
fast | fasten |
fright | frighten |
threat | threaten |
haste | hasten |
strength | strengthen |
By using this vocabulary hack, you can expand word families to include more dynamic verbs while speaking and writing English.