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# thicken

«thicken» in Mova's school dictionary: **to become thicker, or to make something thicker** — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 1 sentence of Mova's corpora that use it.

### part of speech

verb (thicken, thickens, thickened, thickening)

### meaning for a pupil

1) To thicken is to become thicker, or to make something thicker. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/T/thicken/#m1)

2) A liquid that thickens becomes less runny, like sauce or custard. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/T/thicken/#m2)

3) Fog, smoke or a crowd that thickens becomes denser. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/T/thicken/#m3)

4) «The plot thickens» means a story or situation becomes more mysterious and complicated. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/T/thicken/#m4)

### sense in the lessons

In cooking and science lessons on materials: heating custard or adding flour thickens it. In geography, fog thickens. In stories, «the plot thickens» signals a new twist. In maths a line or a layer may thicken by a measured amount.

### examples

- Stir the sauce until it thickens. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/T/thicken/#x1)
- Add flour to thicken the soup. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/T/thicken/#x2)
- The fog thickened and we could not see the road. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/T/thicken/#x3)
- The crowd thickened near the stage. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/T/thicken/#x4)
- The ice on the pond thickened during the cold night. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/T/thicken/#x5)
- Then the missing key turned up in Ben's bag — the plot thickens! [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/T/thicken/#x6)
- Trees thicken their trunks a little every year. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/T/thicken/#x7)

### note

Opposite: thin (out). Noun: thickness; adjective: thick. In cooking, a thickener is something added (flour, cornflour) to make a liquid thicker.

### In the corpora

- [Drugs like EPO thicken the blood, which can raise the risk of dangerous clots.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/medicine/64-cheating-and-doping-as-reported/5/)

### Trees and pragmatics

[Every meaning and example of «thicken» parsed by Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/T/thicken/), each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.