| / English Dictionary |
ENCOURAGING
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Giving courage or confidence or hope
Example:
encouraging advances in medical research
Classified under:
Similar:
exhortative; exhortatory; hortative; hortatory (giving strong encouragement)
heartening; inspiriting (cheerfully encouraging)
promotive (tending to further or encourage)
rallying (rousing or recalling to unity and renewed effort)
Also:
reassuring (restoring confidence and relieving anxiety)
helpful (providing assistance or serving a useful function)
hopeful (having or manifesting hope)
Antonym:
discouraging (depriving of confidence or hope or enthusiasm and hence often deterring action)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Furnishing support and encouragement
Example:
the anxious child needs supporting and accepting treatment from the teacher
Synonyms:
encouraging; supporting
Classified under:
Similar:
supportive (furnishing support or assistance)
II. (verb)
Sense 1
-ing form of the verb encourage
Context examples:
Thornton was running behind, encouraging Buck with short, cheery words.
(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)
Breastfeeding, long known to benefit infant health, partially acts by encouraging the growth of beneficial bacteria such as Bifidobacterium in the baby's gut.
(Gut Bacteria from Breastfeeding Linked to Improved Infant Response to Vaccines, U.S. Department of Agriculture)
Oh, that some encouraging voice would answer in the affirmative!
(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)
It is, I am afraid, not very encouraging to his supporters, though there are one or two points in it which are suggestive.
(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
I tried it backwards, but the combination ‘life pheasant’s hen’ was not encouraging.
(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
A method of birth coaching in assisting the mother by her partner, to relieve her distress during labor and delivery by applying relaxation techniques and encouraging abdominal breathing.
(Birth Partner Coached Method of Delivery, NCI Thesaurus)
The findings are significant because they suggest the feasibility of a novel approach for encouraging regeneration in the mammalian retina, the light sensitive tissue at the back of the eye that dies in many blinding diseases.
(Researchers unlock regenerative potential of cells in the mouse retina, National Institutes of Health)
Male birds of species that form long-lasting pair-bonds often continue to make elaborate displays of plumage, color and dance after they mate with a female, encouraging the female to invest more energy into their brood.
(For species that mate for life, bonding behaviors provide advantages, National Science Foundation)
Their findings raise the possibility that early-life antibiotic use may promote these effects by reducing the diversity of microbial communities in the gut, encouraging the growth of injurious bacterial species and perhaps also suppressing the growth of beneficial microbes.
(Prolonged antibiotic treatment may alter preterm infants’ microbiome, National Institutes of Health)
It seemed to her that Captain Tilney was falling in love with Isabella, and Isabella unconsciously encouraging him; unconsciously it must be, for Isabella's attachment to James was as certain and well acknowledged as her engagement.
(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)
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