Emily Dickinson Lexicon

HEIGHT'EN, or HIGHT'EN, v.t. [hītn.]

1. To raise higher; but not often used in this literal sense.
2. To advance in progress towards a better state; to improve; to meliorate; to increase in excellence or good qualities; as, to highten virtue; to highten the beauties of description, or of poetry.
3. To aggravate; to advance toward a worse state; to augment in violence. Foreign states have endeavored to highten our confusion. Addison.
4. To increase; as, to highten our relish for intellectual pleasure.