Word.ws English Dictionary

disencourage

disencourage verb: to discourage.

Verb

disencourage (third-person singular simple present disencourages, present participle disencouraging, simple past and past participle disencouraged)

  1. (nonstandard, regional) To discourage.
    • The world has acknowledged you my offspring, and I will disencourage you no more.1800, Frances Burney, Diaries and Letters
    • “They say things sometimes that tickles me nearly tuh death, but Ah won't laugh jus' tuh dis-incourage 'em.”1937, Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Amistad, published 2013, page 63

Forms of disencourage

third-person singular presentdisencourages
present participledisencouraging
past participledisencouraged
pastdisencouraged

Origin of disencourage

From dis- + encourage.

Questions about disencourage

What does disencourage mean?
Disencourage means to discourage.
What part of speech is disencourage?
Disencourage is a verb.
What is the past tense of disencourage?
The past tense of disencourage is disencouraged.

Words near disencourage in the dictionary

  1. disenclines
  2. disenclose
  3. disenclosed
  4. disencloses
  5. disenclosing
  6. disencourage
  7. disencouragement
  8. disencouragements
  9. disencumber
  10. disencumbered
  11. disencumbering

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: disencourage (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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