Etymology
Origin of leavening
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The film’s comedy won’t appeal to all tastes, but some will welcome the leavening effect it has on the movie’s more frightening aspects.
From The Wall Street Journal • Oct. 28, 2025
Seven years after her father’s disappearance, Diamond Newberry and her mother are struggling, but Diamond’s observations provide comic leavening.
From Los Angeles Times • May 15, 2024
They are also what make it rise in the absence of other leavening agents.
From Salon • Apr. 30, 2024
Instead of leavening the gravity, D’Angelo, joined by the pianist Sophia Muñoz in the Armory’s Board of Officers Room, doubled down.
From New York Times • Sep. 18, 2022
He recorded the moment in his journal, leavening his relief with the one overriding concern that had lent urgency to the work of all the atomic scientists of those years.
From "Big Science" by Michael Hiltzik
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
