endear

verb
/ɪnˈdɪə(ɹ)/UK/ɪnˈdɪɚ/US

Etymology

From en- + dear.

  1. inherited from *diurijaz — “dear, precious, expensive
  2. inherited from *diurī
  3. inherited from dīere — “of great value or excellence, expensive, beloved
  4. inherited from dere
  5. prefixed as endear — “en + dear

Definitions

  1. To make (something) more precious or valuable.

  2. To make (something) more expensive

    To make (something) more expensive; to increase the cost of.

  3. To stress (something) as important

    To stress (something) as important; to exaggerate.

    • Salvianus Massiliensis[…]saith, that amongst French-men, to lie and forsweare is no vice but a manner of speach. He that would endeare [translating encherir] this Testimonie, might say, it is now rather deemed a vertue among them.
  4. + 1 more definition
    1. To make (someone) dear or precious.

      • By giving candy to the children the man tried to endear himself to them.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

A definitional loop anchored at endear. Each word in the ring is defined by the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself. Scroll to it and watch.

01endear02precious03love04sweetheart05endearment06endeared

A definitional loop anchored at endear. Each word in the ring appears in the definition of the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself.

6 hops · closes at endear

curated · pre-corpus. live cycle detection across the full graph is the next major milestone.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA