Encouraging

How to spell encouraging

11 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce encouraging

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does encouraging mean?

1. adjectiveGiving someone hope, confidence, or the motivation to keep going.
2. verbActively giving someone support or confidence to do something; the present participle of encourage.

Encouraging in a sentence

• adjective

  The test results were encouraging enough to justify another round of funding.

• verb

  The manager kept encouraging her staff to take their full holiday allowance.

• adjective

  She sent an encouraging note before his big interview.

• verb

  By encouraging questions during the meeting, he made everyone feel heard.

Where does encouraging come from?

Language of origin: French

This word traces back to the Latin noun cor, meaning 'heart', which was seen as the seat of bravery and feeling. From the related notion of spirit and boldness came Old French corage, the source of English 'courage'. The Old French verb encoragier combined the prefix en-, meaning 'to put into' or 'to make', with corage, so the literal idea was 'to put heart into someone'. English adopted 'encourage' in the fifteenth century, and the present participle 'encouraging' came to describe anything that inspires confidence or gives hope. The buried 'cour' spelling, with its 'ou' inherited straight from French, is the part writers most often need to watch, since the sound gives no clue that an 'o' belongs before the 'u'.

How the word is built

• en- (to put into)
• courage (heart, spirit)
• -ing (participle/adjective suffix)