Empowering

How to spell empowering

10 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce empowering

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does empowering mean?

1. adjectiveGiving a person a sense of confidence, strength, or control over their own life.
2. verbIn the act of giving someone the authority, confidence, or means to do something.

Empowering in a sentence

• adjective

  The training course was an empowering experience for the new managers.

• verb

  The new policy is aimed at empowering staff to make their own decisions.

• adjective

  Many readers found the memoir genuinely empowering and full of hope.

• verb

  The charity focuses on empowering young people through education.

Where does empowering come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word grows out of the verb 'empower', which English assembled in the early 1600s from the prefix 'em-' and the noun 'power'. The prefix 'em-' is simply the form that 'en-' takes before the letters 'p' and 'b'; it came through Old French from the Latin 'in', meaning 'in' or 'into', and here it carries the sense of putting someone into a state or causing them to have something. 'Power' itself travelled from the Latin verb 'posse', meaning 'to be able', through the Old French 'poeir' or 'pouoir', meaning 'ability' or 'might'. So 'empower' literally meant to put authority or ability into a person, and the '-ing' form developed naturally to describe anything that has this effect of building confidence or capability. The everyday relatives 'possible' and 'potent' share the same Latin 'posse' root, a useful reminder that the spelling rests on 'power' with a simple 'em-' at the front rather than 'en-'.

How the word is built

• em- (to put into, cause to have)
• power (ability, authority)
• -ing (present participle / adjective suffix)