Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To inspire with hope, courage, or confidence; hearten.
- v. To give support to; foster: policies designed to encourage private investment.
- v. To stimulate; spur: burning the field to encourage new plant growth.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To give courage to; inspire with courage, spirit, or firmness of mind; incite to action or perseverance.
- To help forward; promote; give support to: as, to encourage manufactures.
- To make stronger.
Wiktionary
- v. To mentally support; to motivate, give courage, hope or spirit.
- v. To spur on, strongly recommend.
- v. To foster, give help or patronage
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To give courage to; to inspire with courage, spirit, or hope; to raise, or to increase, the confidence of; to animate; enhearten; to incite; to help forward; -- the opposite of
discourage .
WordNet 3.0
- v. inspire with confidence; give hope or courage to
- v. spur on
- v. contribute to the progress or growth of
Etymologies
- Middle English encoragen, from Anglo-Norman encoragier, from Old French encoragier from en- + corage "courage". Displaced native Middle English belden, bielden ("to encourage") (from Old English bieldan ("to encourage")), Middle English bealden, balden ("to encourage") (from Old English bealdian ("to encourage, make bold")), Middle English herten ("to encourage, enhearten") (from Old English hiertan, hyrtan ("to enhearten")), Old English elnian ("to encourage, strengthen"). (Wiktionary)
- Middle English encouragen, from Old French encoragier : en-, causative pref.; see en-1 + corage, courage; see courage. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Mansfield say that the object of the exception in regard to Spain and Portugal was to encourage -- yes, to _encourage_ -- the smuggling trade.”
“In fact, the word encourage means “to put courage into, to give strength.””
“It's a great feeling to have a label encourage you to be more socially conscious and politically active.”
“May I take this opportunity to again encourage NLM readers who are looking for spiritual reading to considering taking up The Rule of St. Benedict (a nice edition is published by Roman Catholic Books) and to consider monastic retreats and the monastic vocation as part of fostering a liturgical life.”
“May I also take this opportunity to again encourage our priests, religious and laymen and women to also consider coordinating and beginning your own equivalent types of pilgrimages and retreats in your own regions.”
“And another thing that I'd like to encourage is colleges of education.”
“And I once again encourage any willing Ontario residents to email your representatives and press them to:”
“Does this emphasis upon physical pain encourage the rest of us to dig deeply into the handbag of our experience and come up with something serviceable, when, in reality, the problem is not actually a matter of hurt at all?”
“The reader who carefully peruses that bafflegab will observe that the only debate that the ECRI desires to encourage is one among journalists over how much self-censorship they should practice.”
“All I can ask or encourage is that NASA mgmt do this whenever possible.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘encourage’.
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Talk Talk
Words for Talking
( open list, randomness )squawk, gab, chatter, chitchat, blab, prattle, blather, discuss, hector, plead, cajole, harangue and 200 more...
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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Words Associated With Jesus
Words that indentify Jesus and His Salvation to those who seek Him.
hope, grace, love, faith, salvation, truth, eternity, heaven, god, holy spirit, bible, scripture and 191 more...
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Kangaroo Words
Words containing letters in sequence, together or apart, that form a definition or instance of the subsuming word. E.g., conTAmINaTe = the kangaroo word. TAINT = the joey. Theme from a NYT X-word ...
encourage, chariot, precipitation, neurotic, feaster, unsightly, charisma, inheritor, masculine, honorable, contaminate, regulate and 103 more...
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EU Buzz - Lisbon Treaty
All words of the Lisbon Treaty
(Persons' names, foreign and grammatical words have been eliminated, MWEs have been split up into individual words. Capitalization has been retained if r...health, follow, condition, meeting, minister, beginning, chapter, information, language, remain, covered, respect and 2614 more...
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EU Buzz - single words (1+2+3)
1. Strictly EU terms with special European meaning used only in the EU
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2. Keywords central to the understanding of the EU (people working for the EU are usually able to give thematic...acceleration, action, additionality, administrator, agenda, agricultural, agri-environmental, agriflation, agri-food, applicant, approach, assent and 1325 more...
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LIT - Iliad - key words and protagonists
abduct, abducting, abductor, Achaea, Achaean, Achilles, advise, Aegean, Aegean Sea, Aegina, aegis, Aeneas and 713 more...
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I am : talking
"These are talking words," I announce. "You mean verbs that can be used for dialogue?" you ask. "That's right!" I agree.
say, speak, ask, declare, query, shout, yell, scream, shriek, squeal, squeak, screech and 81 more...
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Verbs
TO FOSTER GROWTH ..., facilitate, bolster, promote, took over, praise, handle, lambaste, pledge, hoard, inspire, degenerate and 18 more...
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big book gre
abase, abbess, abbey, abbot, abdicate, abdomen, abdominal, abduction, abed, aberration, abet, abeyance and 6689 more...
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The Sog Collection
My big word list.
chaos, flaccid, empirical, flotsam, cacophony, grumble, assuage, awe, romance, mortality, coalesce, fortuitous and 3282 more...
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Encouraging
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Basic English Vocabulary
Very basic words for ESL students.
contemplate, container, consumer, consultant, consensus, conscious, conscience, connection, confusion, confront, conflict, confident and 4334 more...
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What a concept
surrender, submit, yield, self-sacrifice, relent, capitulate, compromise, accommodate, commiserate, forgive, placate, give and 94 more...
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Just 'cause I like 'em, E
excoriate, exoskeleton, enclave, endemic, erstwhile, entwine, elliptical, élan, earflaps, earlobe, earthen, earthenware and 238 more...
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my dictionary
able, abnormally, abroad, absent, abstract, acceptable, acceptance, access, accessible, accession, according to, account and 4551 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for encourage.
reesetee Good point, ptero. It reminds me of the sad, sad case of the word awesome. Oct 5, 2009
milosrdenstvi Clearly a thing we should change; and I would encourage you in your efforts, Mr. Pterodactyl. Oct 3, 2009
pterodactyl Has anyone else noticed that "encourage" has lost the meaning of "give courage to" and is now just a synonym for "urge"? I don't understand this trend. Why change the meaning of "encourage", thus losing the original utility of the word, just to create a cumbersome synonym (two extra syllables!) for a word that's perfectly fine on its own? Oct 3, 2009
oroboros encoURaGE Apr 22, 2008