accentuate

1. 1.

   to stress, single out as important

   “Dr. Jones emphasizes exercise in addition to a change in diet”

   Synonymsstressemphasizeemphasisepunctuateaccent

   Broaderexpress

   Narrowerbackgroundbring outre-emphasisebear downtopicalizepoint updrive homeunderscore
2. 2.

   put stress on; utter with an accent

   “In Farsi, you accent the last syllable of each word”

   Synonymsstressaccent

   Broaderpronounce

Other forms of accentuate

past tense

accentuated·

present participle

accentuating·

third person

accentuates·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about accentuate

What does accentuate mean?

accentuate means "to stress, single out as important". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in accentuate?

accentuate has 4 syllables: ac-cen-tu-ate. The stress falls on "cen". In IPA it is /ækˈsɛntʃueɪt/.

What is another word for accentuate?

Close synonyms include stress, emphasize, emphasise, punctuate, accent. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is accentuate a common word?

accentuate is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.