What does encourage mean?
To encourage is to give another person support, confidence, or hope — often with the effect of spurring them toward some action or helping them persist through difficulty. A parent might encourage a child to keep practising piano; a government might encourage investment through tax incentives. The verb operates on two levels: interpersonally, it involves words or gestures that lift someone's spirits and embolden them; structurally, it describes any condition, policy, or environment that makes a behavior more likely to occur. Encourage takes a consistently positive connotation and works comfortably in both casual speech and formal prose, appearing in contexts from classrooms and workplaces to economics and public policy. Its noun form, encouragement, names the supportive act or feeling itself, while the adjective encouraging describes anything that inspires optimism. Because it pairs naturally with people, efforts, growth, and change, encourage remains one of English's most versatile and frequently used verbs of motivation.
verbTo give someone support, confidence, or hope, so that they are more likely to do or continue something; also to stimulate the development of something by making it more likely or easier.
- To give someone support, confidence, or hope so they feel able or willing to do something.
- To actively urge or persuade someone to do something.
- To foster the growth or occurrence of something by creating favorable conditions.
"Her teacher encouraged her to apply for the scholarship."
"The coach encouraged the young athletes before their first big match."
"Government grants were introduced to encourage investment in renewable energy."
"Encourage" literally means to put courage into someone — every word of encouragement is a small act of bravery transfer.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of encourage
Encourage entered English in the early 15th century, borrowed from Old French encoragier, which combines the prefix en- ("in, into") with corage, meaning "heart" or "courage," ultimately from Latin cor, "heart." The literal sense was thus "to put heart into" someone — to instill boldness or spirit. This same Latin root cor gives us related words such as courage, cordial, and cardiac, all originally tied to the heart as the seat of emotion and resolve.
Related word forms
How encourage is actually used
Encourage is neutral in register, fitting both everyday conversation and formal writing. When it takes a person plus an infinitive ("encourage her to try"), it implies active persuasion; when it takes only an object ("encourage innovation"), it suggests fostering conditions rather than urging. It carries a consistently positive connotation.
Easily confused with encourage
Encourage means to inspire confidence or support action, while its prefix-flipped counterpart discourage means to undermine confidence or try to prevent an action.