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intensify

/ɪnˈtensɪfaɪ/·verb

to become or make stronger, greater or more extreme
Fig. 1 — The pot has been murmuring to itself all afternoon — small beads rising in ones and twos, a lazy thread of steam.
01Definition

To intensify is to gain strength without changing shape: the same rain, harder; the same search, wider awake; the same feeling, turned up. From Latin intensus, 'stretched tight'. Where escalate climbs by steps and answers, intensifying is force building in place — fighting intensifies, scrutiny intensifies, a flavour intensifies as the sauce reduces. The verb works both directions: pressure intensifies on its own, and governments intensify their efforts on purpose.

02In use
  • iThe storm intensified overnight, and by dawn the ferries had stopped running.
  • iiPolice intensified the search as the light began to fail.
  • iiiCompetition for places intensifies every year the rankings improve.
03Collocations
  • the fighting intensified
  • intensify efforts
  • intensify pressure
  • the storm intensified
  • intensify scrutiny

Family intensity (noun) · intense (adjective) · intensification (noun)

04Relations

=escalate, amplify, heighten, deepen, strengthen

≠subside, abate, diminish

06TOEFL & IELTS

The news-register verb for anything strengthening: fighting, sanctions, rivalry, heatwaves and scrutiny all intensify, and in Task 1 'competition intensified' upgrades a plain 'increased'. The process noun earns its keep in cause-and-effect prose: the intensification of land use, of monitoring, of the conflict. Against escalate, keep the pictures apart: escalation climbs a ladder of responses; intensification is the same thing burning harder.

07Asked
What is the difference between intense and intensive?
Intense describes how strong something is in itself: intense heat, intense pressure, an intense person. Intensive describes how concentrated an effort or method is: intensive care, an intensive course, intensive farming — much input packed into little time or space. The heat of an argument is intense; the two-week course that argues about it is intensive. Mixing them is one of the most reliably penalised word-family slips.
Is it 'for all intents and purposes' or 'for all intensive purposes'?
Intents and purposes. The phrase is legal boilerplate from Tudor England — a 1546 Act of Parliament used 'to all intents, constructions, and purposes' — and it means 'in every practical sense'. Because the words blur in speech, learners often hear 'intensive purposes', a famous mishearing that dictionaries now warn against by name. Nothing about purposes is intensive.
Can something intensify and escalate at the same time?
Yes — and that is the cleanest way to tell them apart. Fighting intensifies where it is (same front, more force) and escalates when it spreads to new regions or new weapons. Escalate moves in steps and in scope — a dispute escalates into a strike, a complaint escalates to a manager — while intensify turns up the degree of the same thing, in place.
What is the difference between intensity and intensification?
Intensity is the state — how strong something currently is: the intensity of the heat, of the debate, of his stare. Intensification is the process of that strength increasing: the intensification of the conflict took a decade. In Task 1 terms, intensity is a level you can read off the chart; intensification is the slope.
What does 'rapid intensification' mean for hurricanes?
A technical threshold, not a loose phrase: US forecasters define it as a tropical cyclone's winds strengthening by about 35 mph (30 knots) within 24 hours, and most storms that reach the top categories pass through such a burst. It is the atmosphere doing what the knob does in the scene above — nothing new added, the same system, suddenly asked to burn much harder.
What is an intensifier in grammar?
A word whose whole job is to turn up the word next to it: very tired, really sorry, absolutely certain, so glad. Grammars class them as a family of adverbs, and learner writing tends to lean on 'very' alone — swapping in remarkably, considerably or exceptionally is an easy register upgrade. The family name is the verb in miniature: they intensify.