discourage.
To extinguish the courage of; to dishearten; to depress the spirits of; to deprive of confidence; to deject.
Meaning & usage
To extinguish the courage of; to dishearten; to depress the spirits of; to deprive of confidence; to deject.
Don't be discouraged by the amount of work left to do: you'll finish it in good time.
To persuade somebody not to do (something).
Where this word comes from
From Middle French descourager (modern French décourager), from Old French descouragier, from des- and corage. By surface analysis, dis- + courage.
Lack of courage
Where this word comes from
From Middle French descourager (modern French décourager), from Old French descouragier, from des- and corage. By surface analysis, dis- + courage.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.