verb ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Verb

1. 1
   To make rough. transitive

   "The wind began to roughen the surface of the sea."

2. 2
   make rough or rougher wordnet
3. 3
   To become rough. intransitive

Synonyms

All synonyms

agitatebeatbeat upbosschurnchurn up

Antonyms

All antonyms

polishsmooth

Example

More examples

"The wind began to roughen the surface of the sea."

Etymology

From rough + -en.

Related phrases

roughen up

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.