ennoble

Framing the Declaration as more than a manifesto establishing a new nation, Coolidge described it as “everywhere to ennoble humanity.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 22, 2026

One of U2’s enduring strengths has been the way its songs ennoble yearning and turbulence.

From New York Times ● Mar. 17, 2023

The number of people who, out of civic generosity, think that they can enlarge or ennoble their selves by giving their energies to a good larger than themselves?

From Salon ● May 27, 2019

For Hegel, as Hägglund reads him, a religious institution is really just a community that has come together to ennoble “a governing set of norms—a shared understanding of what counts as good and just.”

From The New Yorker ● May 13, 2019

The "benevolent qualities of head and heart by a primeval decree are not dependent on education, for although it enlightens and enlarges the mind of man, it does not always ennoble it."

From Stories of Old Kentucky by Martha Grassham Purcell

It’s a great, and possibly fictitious, myth that ennobles an ethos of isolated bravery.

From Slate ● Mar. 26, 2024

That awful blur is another stain on history, one that ennobles “The High Ground’s” mission.

From Washington Post ● Mar. 1, 2023

It is also often seen as a form of art that ennobles those who play and listen to it.

From Salon ● Mar. 20, 2021

We’d like to believe that suffering instructs and ennobles; that our grief, fear and pain increases our sympathy for the grief, fear and pain of others.

From The Guardian ● Oct. 6, 2020

Art civilizes because it enlightens, develops, strengthens, ennobles.

From The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 11 (of 12) Dresden Edition?Miscellany by Robert Green Ingersoll

And Stewart’s shaping of the character ennobled television in ways cosmic and small.

From Salon ● Oct. 30, 2026

Better to live in a world where freedom of expression is ubiquitous than one where the “truth” is told to us by a few ennobled journalists.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 13, 2026

Lord Houchen is the Conservative mayor for Tees Valley, which includes Stockton, and was ennobled in Boris Johnson's resignation honours list.

From BBC ● Nov. 23, 2023

And they’re very different from the ennobled peasants in popular genre paintings by artists like the Le Nain brothers in France or cheery laborers by Dutch artist Johannes Lingelbach.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 31, 2023

These opportunities, therefore, made these men successful, and their outstanding virtue enabled them to recognize that opportunity, whereby their nation was ennobled and became extremely happy.

From "The Prince" by Niccolò Machiavelli

His balding head’s scraggly hair—in contrast to the wigs worn by just about every Frenchman at the time, no matter the social class—is both ennobling and a bit enfeebling, like an aging but distinguished mane.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 12, 2026

Shostakovich’s detractors have accused him of ennobling Stalin while defenders have sought out subtle musical cues of dissent.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 1, 2024

It adds an ennobling air to their real function, which is propaganda.

From Salon ● Apr. 20, 2023

In 1650, Diego Velázquez painted this ennobling portrait of Juan de Pareja, a studio assistant enslaved in his studio.

From New York Times ● Apr. 7, 2023

And this confession made his romantic gestures all the more ennobling.

From "The Joy Luck Club" by Amy Tan