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Glite Dictionary
to hoarsen

to hoarsen

7.4
To make a voice sound rough or harsh
  • verb
  • /ˈhɔrsən/
translation icon : roncar
  • The rest of the time, Aunt Claire stitched at her pillow while Aunt Fran hunkered on the floor to do stretching exercises, their hoarse voices hoarsening as time went on, and during the day they persuaded my mother to go shopping for shoes.
  • hoarsen her voice

Examples

  • After cheering for hours at the concert, her voice began to hoarsen.

  • "Your customs differ," she pointed out, allowing boredom to hoarsen her voice a little.

    Fiction book (2000)

  • Yelling over the crowd made his voice hoarsen by the end of the game.

  • The cold air outside caused her to hoarsen as she spoke.

Surface Forms

hoarsen infinitive
hoarsened past
hoarsened past participle
hoarsening present participle
hoarsens third person singular

Morphology

hoarsen = hoarse (transparent) = hoarse + en

The verb is predictably formed by adding the productive verb-forming suffix '-en' to the adjective 'hoarse' (orthographic change of the final 'e' is regular).

Etymology

Hoarsen comes from the adjective hoarse plus the verb ending -en, and that older hoarse came from an Old English word meaning 'rough' or 'scratchy' in the voice. So, to hoarsen is to make a voice sound rough or strained, like after shouting or when you have a cold.