discourage
- 01 B2 Upper Intermediate
to make someone lose hope or confidence so they want to stop trying.
to deprive of courage, hope, or confidence; to dishearten or deject. Transitive, taking a person as the direct object.
Simple“The difficult math problems started to discourage the students after an hour of work.”
In context“Repeated rejections from publishers began to discourage the young novelist, despite the initial praise her manuscript had received from her peers.”
- 02 B2 Upper Intermediate
to try to stop something from happening or to talk someone out of an idea.
to dissuade or deter someone from a course of action. Often used with the pattern 'discourage someone from doing something'.
Simple“The high prices at the shop discourage many people from buying organic food.”
In context“The government introduced a new tax on sugary drinks to discourage citizens from consuming unhealthy amounts of soda.”
PitfallMy parents discouraged me to go to the party. My parents discouraged me from going to the party.The verb discourage is followed by 'from' and a gerund (-ing form), not a 'to' infinitive.
“Measures are being put in place to discourage young people from remaining at the site once the new school term begins.”
“Organisers of the Eurovision Song Contest are proposing major rule changes to discourage voting campaigns that aim to influence the results.”
From Middle French descourager (modern French décourager), from Old French descouragier, from des- and corage. By surface analysis, dis- + courage.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.