- discourage
- discourage vb1 Discourage, dishearten, dispirit, deject mean to weaken in qualities that maintain interest, zeal, activity, or power to continue or to resist.Discourage implies not only the loss of courage and confidence but the entrance of fear and the marked diminution of all power to summon up one's forces{
the long winter and the lack of fuel discouraged the settlers
}{his failure had completely discouraged his wife
}Dishearten differs little from discourage, but it stresses not so much a mood or a state of mind as a loss of heart or will to accomplish a purpose or to achieve an end{the slight response to their appeal disheartened the promoters of the fund
}{his answers were at the same time so vague and equivocal, that her mother, though often disheartened, had never yet despaired of succeeding at last— Austen
}Dispirit distinctively implies the loss of cheerfulness or hopefulness; it often suggests a prevailing gloom that casts a blight upon a gathering, a project, or whatever depends for its success upon the spirits of those who enter into it. It may also, more strongly than discourage, suggest the way an individual or group affects others{in quelling a local Armenian revolt he was badly wounded. Sick and dispirited, he gave up his Arabian plan— Buchan
}{dispirited by their futile efforts— Grandgent
}{the shabby, dispiriting spectacle of Versailles, with its base greeds and timidities— Montague
}Deject, even more strongly than dispirit, implies a casting down, with resulting loss of cheerfulness or hopefulness, but, unlike dispirit, it refers usually to the individual alone{she has been much dejected lately
}{nothing dejects a trader like the interruption of his profits— Johnson
}Antonyms: encourageContrasted words: inspirit, hearten, embolden, nerve, steel (see ENCOURAGE)2 deter, *dissuade, divert
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.
