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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

empower.

To give permission, power, or the legal right to do something.

7 characters3 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

verb/ɪmˈpaʊ.ə/Received-Pronunciation/ɛmˈpaʊ.ə/Received-Pronunciation/ɪmˈpaʊ.əɹ/Canada, General-American/ɛmˈpaʊ.əɹ/Canada, General-American
  1. To give permission, power, or the legal right to do something.

    transitive
  2. To give someone more confidence and/or strength to do something, often by enabling them to increase their control over their own life or situation.

    transitive
    John found that starting up his own business empowered him greatly in social situations.
Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₁én Proto-Italic *en Proto-Italic *en- Latin in- Old French en-bor. Middle English en- English em- Proto-Indo-European *pótis Proto-Italic *potis Proto-Indo-European *h₁es- Proto-Indo-European *h₁ésti Proto-Indo-European *bʰuH- Proto-Indo-European *-t Proto-Indo-European *bʰúHt Proto-Italic *som Proto-Italic *possom Latin posseder. Vulgar Latin potēre Old French pooir Anglo-Norman poerbor. Middle English power English power English empower From em- + power.

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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.