- dissuade
- dissuade, deter, discourage, divert mean to turn one aside from a purpose, a project, or a plan.Dissuade carries the strongest implication of advice, argument, or exhortation; like the affirmative form persuade, it usually suggests gentle or effective methods and carries no suggestion of bullying or browbeating, though it equally carries little or no suggestion of coaxing or wheedling{
Sir Walter had at first thought more of London; but Mr. Shepherd . . . had been skillful enough to dissuade him from it, and make Bath preferred— Austen
}{wrOte a book to dissuade people from the use of tobacco— Scudder
}{Galton was eagerly interested and wanted to experiment on himself, though ultimately dissuaded on account of his advanced age— Ellis
}While deter often implies the operation of fear as the cause of turning aside from the fulfillment of a project, it may suggest no more than a changing of purpose for cause rather than from mere caprice{the fear of reprisals deterred them from using poison gas
}{he vowed that nothing should deter him from his purpose
}{the Judge's remark about hanging around the stable did not deter Theophilus from playing there all that winter— Deland
}{Peter for a time abandoned both smoking and alcohol, and was only deterred from further abstinences by their impracticability— H. G. Wells
}{he then hazards the conjecture that Aristotle wrote so obscurely in order that he might deter slow-witted and indolent men from reading him— Babbitt
}In deterrent the implication that it is fear which is the cause of holding back is stronger than in the verb.Discourage (see also DISCOURAGE) implies a deterring by undermining spirit or enthusiasm or by weakening intent or sense of purpose{discouraged him from prosecuting the inquiry
}{the incessant hurry and trivial activity of daily life . . . seem to prevent, or at least discourage, quiet and intense thinking— Eliot
}{I definitely wished to discourage his intimacy with my family— Rose Macaulay
}Divert (see also TURN and AMUSE) implies a turning aside, but here the mind or some of its functions is usually the thing diverted or turned aside, and another object of interest or attention is generally expressed or understood as the alternative; in this sense divert is often used of the very young, or of the preoccupied or the worried{the children's attention was diverted to a more interesting game
}{thank God for colonels, thought Mrs. Miniver; sweet creatures, so easily entertained, so biddably diverted from senseless controversy into comfortable monologue— Jan Struther
}Antonyms: persuade
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.
