Library / English Dictionary

DISCOURAGE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Advise or counsel in terms of someone's behavior

Example:

She warned him to be quiet

Synonyms:

admonish; discourage; monish; warn

Classified under:

Verbs of telling, asking, ordering, singing

Hypernyms (to "discourage" is one way to...):

advise; counsel; rede (give advice to)

Verb group:

warn (notify of danger, potential harm, or risk)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s somebody
Somebody ----s PP

Sentence examples:

Sam cannot discourage Sue

They discourage him from writing the letter

Sense 2

Meaning:

Try to prevent; show opposition to

Example:

We should discourage this practice among our youth

Synonyms:

deter; discourage

Classified under:

Verbs of telling, asking, ordering, singing

Hypernyms (to "discourage" is one way to...):

disapprove; reject (deem wrong or inappropriate)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s somebody
Something ----s somebody
Something ----s something

Sentence example:

They discourage him from writing the letter

Derivation:

discouragement (the act of discouraging)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Deprive of courage or hope; take away hope from; cause to feel discouraged

Classified under:

Verbs of feeling

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "discourage"):

cast down; deject; demoralise; demoralize; depress; dismay; dispirit; get down (lower someone's spirits; make downhearted)

dishearten; put off (take away the enthusiasm of)

intimidate (to compel or deter by or as if by threats)

pour cold water on; throw cold water on (be discouraging or negative about)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s somebody
Something ----s somebody

Sentence example:

The bad news will discourage him

Antonym:

encourage (inspire with confidence; give hope or courage to)

Derivation:

discouragement (the feeling of despair in the face of obstacles)

Credits

 Context examples: 

Neuropsychiatric Inventory (NPI) Does the patient seem very discouraged or say that he/she has no future?

(NPI - Seem Very Discouraged, NCI Thesaurus)

The little girls undertook it, but they are discouraged.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

This combination of agents alters the endometrium in such a way as to discourage implantation.

(Ethinyl Estradiol/Levonorgestrel, NCI Thesaurus)

The usage of this unit is discouraged in favor of the katal by International Federation of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine due to lack of its coherence with the SI system.

(Enzyme Unit, NCI Thesaurus)

The scientists also recommend caps on antibiotic use and levying user fees on buyers of farm antibiotics which would effectively make it more expensive and discourage excessive use.

(Eat less meat to cut drug resistance, SciDev.Net)

However, substances containing N-glycosidic bonds, where the anomeric carbon is bound to some other group via a nitrogen atom, are called glycosylamines; the term N-glycoside is considered a misnomer by IUPAC and is discouraged.

(Glycoside, NCI Thesaurus)

It was no wonder that from below we had not observed the place, as the cliffs curved overhead and an ascent at the spot would have seemed so impossible as to discourage close inspection.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

By all which, instead of being discouraged, they are fifty times more violently bent upon prosecuting their schemes, driven equally on by hope and despair: that as for himself, being not of an enterprising spirit, he was content to go on in the old forms, to live in the houses his ancestors had built, and act as they did, in every part of life, without innovation: that some few other persons of quality and gentry had done the same, but were looked on with an eye of contempt and ill-will, as enemies to art, ignorant, and ill common-wealth’s men, preferring their own ease and sloth before the general improvement of their country.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

Dr Željko Pedišić, the first author of the research from Victoria University in Australia, said: Any running is probably good for your health and you can achieve those benefits by running even just once a week or running 50 minutes a week, but that shouldn’t discourage those who run more than that amount, who maybe enjoy running three times a week or six times a week.

(Reduce Risk of Early Death with Any Amount of Running, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

I passed three days in a luxury of wretchedness, torturing myself by putting every conceivable variety of discouraging construction on all that ever had taken place between Dora and me.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)