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elevate

verb

Simple meaning

Give a promotion to or assign to a higher position.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

ehluhvayt

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US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈɛləveɪt

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

verb

  1. Give a promotion to or assign to a higher position

  2. Raise from a lower to a higher position

  3. transitive

    To promote (someone) to a higher rank.

  4. transitive

    To make (something or someone) more worthy or of greater value.

  5. transitive

    To direct (the mind, thoughts, etc.) toward more worthy things.

  6. transitive

    To increase the intensity or degree of (something).

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
C1 · Advanced
Frequency
Uncommon
Typical Use
Primarily written

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: Give a promotion to or assign to a higher position

Used this way, elevate is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
No strong connotation
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

elevate bloodhelped elevate

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Similar Words, What’s the Difference?

Close in meaning, but not always interchangeable.

  • lift

    Raise from a lower to a higher position.

  • bring up

    Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see bring, up: To bring from a lower to a higher position.

  • kick upstairs

    To promote (an employee considered troublesome) to a position of lesser influence, but of apparently higher status.

Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Inflected forms

Grammatical variations of the same word.

  • elevatednounInflected form

    A railway that is powered by electricity and that runs on a track that is raised above the street level.

Word family

Words built from the same root.

  • elevatornounPerson or profession · specialist

    Lifting device consisting of a platform or cage that is raised and lowered mechanically in a vertical shaft in order to move people from one floor to another in a building.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

  • elevated railroadnounCompound term

    A railway that is powered by electricity and that runs on a track that is raised above the street level.

  • elevated railwaynounCompound term

    A railway that is powered by electricity and that runs on a track that is raised above the street level.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

Sense: give a promotion to

bring up

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.