encourage.
To mentally support; to motivate, give courage, hope or spirit.
Meaning & usage
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.
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.
To foster, give help or patronage.
The royal family has always encouraged the arts in word and deed.
Where this word comes from
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.
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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.