influence
- 01 B1 Intermediate
a person or thing that has an effect on others.
a person or thing with the capacity or power to affect others, often used to describe a role model or a significant factor.
Simple“My older brother was a positive influence on me when I was growing up.”
In context“The architect cited the brutalist movement as a primary influence on her early residential designs.”
Synonyms
Usage influence on human · clearly influence · considerable influence
From Middle English influence, from Old French influence (“emanation from the stars affecting one's fate”), from Medieval Latin īnfluentia, from Latin īnfluēns (“flowing in”), present active participle of īnfluō (“flow into”), from in- (“in-”) + fluō (“flow”). Doublet of influenza.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.