encourage

Other forms of encourage

past tense

encouraged·

present participle

encouraging·

third person

encourages·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about encourage

What does encourage mean?

encourage means "contribute to the progress or growth of". That is the primary sense; the word has 3 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in encourage?

encourage has 3 syllables: en-cou-rage. The stress falls on "cou". In IPA it is /ɛnˈkɝɪdʒ/.

What is another word for encourage?

Close synonyms include promote, advance, boost, further. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

What is the opposite of encourage?

The recorded antonyms are discourage.

Is encourage a common word?

encourage is banded "Common" — everyday vocabulary in speech and writing. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.