As n-ary operations, generalizing Lie and Poisson algebras, arise in many different physical contexts, it is interesting to study general ways of constructing explicit realizations of such multilinear structures. Generically, they describe the dynamics of a physical system, and there is a need of understanding their quantization. Hom-Nambu-Lie algebras provide a framework that might be an appropriate setting in which n-Lie algebras (n-ary Nambu-Lie algebras) can be deformed, and their quantization studied. We present a procedure to construct (n + 1)-ary Hom-Nambu-Lie algebras from n-ary Hom-Nambu-Lie algebras equipped with a generalized trace function. It turns out that the implications of the compatibility conditions, that are necessary for this construction, can be understood in terms of the kernel of the trace function and the range of the twisting maps. Furthermore, we investigate the possibility of defining (n + k)-Lie algebras from n-Lie algebras and a k-form satisfying certain conditions. (C) 2011 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3653197]