| Kenneth G. Wilson (1923–). The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. 1993. |
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| accent 3, accentuate (vv.) |
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| Although accent has some generic use (Adding mustard will accent the flavors of the salad dressing), many of its uses are technical, especially in language matters: Germanic languages tend to accent [i.e., stress] the first syllable. Accentuate has many more figurative uses than accent and is much more widely used in the sense of “to increase through contrast”: That blue scarf accentuates the blue in your eyes. In some uses the words may be nearly interchangeable, especially in the sense of “to stress,” but only accentuate has the additional figurative meaning “to increase,” as in Their woeful lack of leadership only accentuates their general air of disarray. | 1 |
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| | | The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. Copyright © 1993 Columbia University Press. |
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