How to use empower in a sentence

22 example sentences · verb

Empower means to give permission, power, or the legal right to do something. Example: “John found that starting up his own business empowered him greatly in social situations.”

Examples of empower by meaning

verbTo give permission, power, or the legal right to do something.

Regulations have been made under the Civil Aviation Acts of 1949, 1980 and 1982 which empower Inspectors of Accidents to do these things.1985, William H. Tench, Safety is no accident

verbTo give someone more confidence and/or strength to do something, often by enabling them to increase their control over...

John found that starting up his own business empowered him greatly in social situations.
Musically, what originally attracted me to dance was its shamanist aspects, using natural magic to change people's neurological states and to psychologically empower them.1992, Nick Logan, The Face, page 11-130
This side of the training is effective in empowering employees to make better decisions on site, and helps to improve employee retention.2021 November 17, Davie Carns, “Addressing the skills gap”, in RAIL, number 944, page 62

More sentences with empower

OK, I'll bite: political correctness may not be perfect, but isn't its aim to empower and protect?2020 October 11, Barbara Ellen, “John Lydon: 'Don't become entrenched in one opinion and get stuck there for ever'”, in The Observer…. From the entry I'll bite
Empowering the collective does not empower individuals — just the reverse is true.2006 May 29, Jaron Lanier, “Digital Maoism: The Hazards of the New Online Collectivism”, in Edge. From the entry hivemind
I am a “femaleist.”I think that beer, when at its best, empowers women.2006, Christopher Mark O'Brien, Fermenting Revolution: How to Drink Beer and Save the World, →ISBN. From the entry femaleist
Becoming a “repat” felt empowering to Mr.2024 February 16, Colette Coleman, “Blaxit: Tired of Racism, Black Americans Try Life in Africa”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.…. From the entry repat
Responsibilization is not an inherent entailment of devolution; there are decidedly more empowering and more democratic potentials for devolved decision making.2015, Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism's Stealth Revolution, →ISBN, page 134. From the entry responsibilization
The Manosphere essentially is the counterpoint to the feminist doctrine (that empowers women at the expense of men).2014, Alex Peck, Average Married Dad's Guide to Health, Wealth, and a Sexy Marriage, page 84. From the entry manosphere
We write and talk and empower each other, but the obsession with newness and youth (newth?) does not seem to change.2006, Erica Jong, Fear of Fifty: A Midlife Memoir. From the entry newth
Take this process as an opportunity to develop your supply chain team and empower them to help stack rank where investments are needed.2022 December 30, Mathew Elenjickal, “What Decisions Should Shape The Supply Chain In 2023”, in Forbes, archived from the original on 12…. From the entry stack rank
Socially empowering bots are out there.2016 November, Douglas Guilbeault, Samuel Woolley, “How Twitter Bots Are Shaping the Election”, in The Atlantic. From the entry misgender
However, Aristotle was not able to see the tiny hairs, called setae, that cover the toes of geckos and empower this feat.2009 January, Ginel Corina Hill, “Introduction”, in Dual-axis MEMS Force Sensors for Gecko Adhesion Studies (unpublished Ph.D.…. From the entry gecko
In our discussion of power above, it is indicated that this defeats one of the metapurposes of counseling, which is to empower the client.2003, Ira David Welch, The therapeutic relationship, page 210. From the entry metapurpose
In Oklahoma, public students can choose to take Indigenous language courses like Bodéwadmimwen, Cherokee, Chickasaw, Comanche and others for school credit — an empowering step toward recognition and respect.2025 June 19, Robert Collins, “Learning an Indigenous language in Oklahoma is a living link to tribal ancestors”, in The Oklahoman…. From the entry Chickasaw
Reshma Saujani is not a coder but she's empowering "an army of young women" to take on tech's gender gap through her nonprofit Girls Who Code.2017 August 21, Haley Draznin, “Girls Who Code founder: Men build technologies to 'replace their mothers'”, in CNN Business, archived from…. From the entry coder
Some managers argue that technological advances empower them to send specific and highly personalized messages to particular segments of the electorate in more efficient ways than ever.2016, William J. Feltus, Kenneth M. Goldstein, Matthew Dallek, Inside Campaigns: Elections through the Eyes of Political Professionals, CQ…. From the entry microtargeting
Picture taking soothed support troops' anxieties twice over, empowering them as they navigated a strange environment, and arming them with proof that they really had served in a war.2011, Meredith H. Lair, Armed with Abundance: Consumerism & Soldiering in the Vietnam War, Univ of North Carolina Press, →ISBN, page 215. From the entry arm
These institutions of self-government in the Polish countryside, initially designed to empower the peasantry at the expense of the manors, were gradually transformed into instruments of the ruling bureaucracy.1995, Robert E[dward] Blobaum, “[Russian State, Polish Society] The Impact of Agrarian Reform”, in Rewolucja: Russian Poland, 1904–1907…. From the entry gmina
This judicious representation of brutality, domestic violence and struggle empowers women trying to break the shame and fear propagated by the antiseptic whitewashing of conventional media.1991 May 4, Mary Dowd, “Risky Business”, in Gay Community News, page 7. From the entry antiseptic
Thus “Telephone” inverts the power dynamics of media reception, where the empowering or queer reading of such products as lesploitation films are relegated as “readings against the grain” or appropriations.2011, Katrin Horn, “Follow the Glitter Way: Lady Gag and Camp”, in Richard J. Gray II, editor, The Performance Identities of Lady Gaga…. From the entry lesploitation

Meaning of empower

verb To give permission, power, or the legal right to do something.
verb To give someone more confidence and/or strength to do something, often by enabling them to increase their control over their own life or situation.

Full definition of empower

Questions about empower in a sentence

How do you use empower in a sentence?: Empower is used as a verb. For example: “John found that starting up his own business empowered him greatly in social situations.”
What is a short sentence with empower?: “Socially empowering bots are out there.”
What does empower mean?: Empower means to give permission, power, or the legal right to do something.

Adapted from Wiktionary: empower (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this page: “How to use empower in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/empower. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.