Word.ws English Dictionary

enhearten

UK/ɛnˈhɑːtə̆n/US/ɛnˈhɑɹtən/

enhearten verb: to comfort and embolden, encourage, animate, hearten.

Verb

enhearten (third-person singular simple present enheartens, present participle enheartening, simple past and past participle enheartened)

  1. To comfort and embolden, encourage, animate, hearten.
    • […] it is only with difficulty that they are induced to make the enheartening prayer “May the gods fight on our side.”1924, Herbert Weir Smyth, “V. The Seven Against Thebes”, in Aeschylean Tragedy, page 136
    • But the victory did little to enhearten the captains.1954, JRR Tolkien, Lord of the Rings, Vol 3, Houghton Mifflin Co., page 164

Forms of enhearten

third-person singular presentenheartens
present participleenheartening
past participleenheartened
pastenheartened

Origin of enhearten

From en- + heart + -en.

Questions about enhearten

What does enhearten mean?
Enhearten means to comfort and embolden, encourage, animate, hearten.
What part of speech is enhearten?
Enhearten is a verb.
How do you pronounce enhearten?
Enhearten is pronounced /ɛnˈhɑːtə̆n/ (UK).
What is the past tense of enhearten?
The past tense of enhearten is enheartened.

Words near enhearten in the dictionary

  1. Enhe
  2. enhearse
  3. enhearsed
  4. enhearses
  5. enhearsing
  6. enhearten
  7. enheartened
  8. enheartening
  9. enheartens
  10. enhedge
  11. enhedged

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: enhearten (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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