enhancer
(ɛnˈhɑːnsə(r), -ˈhæns-)
[f. enhance v. + -er1.]
1. gen. One who, or that which, enhances.
| 1388 Wyclif Exod. xxii. 15 And Moises bildide an auter and clepide the name thereof The Lord myn enhaunsere. 1568 Like Will to Like in Hazl. Dodsley III. 316 Thou art the enhancer of my renown. 1611 Rich Honest. Age (1844) 65 Pride is the inhaunser of all our miseries. 1832 Lytton Eugene A. iv. 96 Errors of life as well as foibles of characters are often the real enhancers of celebrity. |
2. spec. a. One who sets up or raises a weir to an excessive height. (Cf. quot. 1622 s.v. enhancing vbl. n.)
| 1622 Callis Stat. Sewers (1647) 205 It gives the like penalty against him which shall relevy the annoyance, as against the inhauncer. |
b. One who raises or seeks to raise prices. † Formerly also absol. (cf. engrosser, forestaller).
| 1549 Latimer Serm. bef. Edw. VI (Arb.) 111 Money makers, inhauncers, and promoters of them selues. 1577 B. Googe Heresbach's Husb. (1586) 47 In no wise to be a raiser or enhaunser of rentes. 1631 Star Chamb. Cases (1886) 46 Yet he was adjudged an inhauncer for but advising the same. a 1680 Butler Rem. (1759) I. 151 The Jew, Forestaller and Enhancer To him for all their Crimes did answer. |