Definition of "heightening"

For them, there was "an increase in total lymphocyte production, and a higher IG antibody response," among other heightenings.

2003, Gary Null, Germs, Biological Warfare, Vaccinations: What You Need to Know

There are flourishes and coloratura passages in this art, heightenings and sharpenings of the line that serve only to give the needy linear system a value of its own in confrontation with nature.

1970, Heinrich Wölfflin, Drawings of Albrecht Dürer, page 4