encourage

verb
/ɪnˈkʌɹ.ɪd͡ʒ/

Etymology

From Middle English encouragen, encoragen, from Anglo-Norman encoragier, from Old French encoragier. Displaced native Old English hiertan, tyhtan, and trymman. By surface analysis, en- + courage.

  1. derived from encoragier
  2. derived from encoragier
  3. inherited from encouragen

Definitions

  1. To mentally support

    To mentally support; to motivate, give courage, hope or spirit.

    • I encouraged him during his race.
    • Delia's coach encouraged her to focus on the positives.
    • The visitors we do not encourage are the many small boys who slip in unobserved and are a danger to themselves and the staff.
  2. To spur on, strongly recommend.

    • We encourage the use of bicycles in the town centre.
    • We encourage you to cycle instead of taking the car.
  3. To foster, give help or patronage.

    • The royal family has always encouraged the arts in word and deed.
    • In addition the Marquess built a brickworks adjacent to the colliery, and also greatly improved the harbour to encourage coastal shipping.
    • They remove all sense of self-responsibility from us prisoners. We have virtually no control over any aspect of our lives. This does not encourage our ability to return to community life outside.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

A definitional loop anchored at encourage. Each word in the ring is defined by the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself. Scroll to it and watch.

01encourage02motivate03animate04possessing05possess06supernatural07born08birth09offspring10further

A definitional loop anchored at encourage. Each word in the ring appears in the definition of the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself.

10 hops · closes at encourage

curated · pre-corpus. live cycle detection across the full graph is the next major milestone.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA