Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use encourage in a sentence

40 example sentences · verb

Encourage means to mentally support; to motivate, give courage, hope or spirit. Example: “I encouraged him during his race.”

Examples of encourage by meaning

verbTo mentally support; to motivate, give courage, hope or spirit.

  • I encouraged him during his race.
  • Delia's coach encouraged her to focus on the positives.
  • The visitors we do not encourage are the many small boys who slip in unobserved and are a danger to themselves and the staff.1960 April, A. W. Bennett, “A Locomotive Shedmaster's Day”, in Railway Magazine, page 273

verbTo spur on, strongly recommend.

  • We encourage the use of bicycles in the town centre.
  • We encourage you to cycle instead of taking the car.

verbTo foster, give help or patronage.

  • The royal family has always encouraged the arts in word and deed.
  • In addition the Marquess built a brickworks adjacent to the colliery, and also greatly improved the harbour to encourage coastal shipping.1960 January, Iain D. O. Frew, “The Brora Colliery Tramway”, in Railway Magazine, page 55
  • This does not encourage our ability to return to community life outside.1987 December 20, Tim Scaggs, “No Other Choice But To Go On A Hunger Strike”, in Gay Community News, volume 15, number 23, page 5

More sentences with encourage

  • One way to encourage your employees to work harder is by giving them incentives.From the entry employee
  • I felt encouraged by all the enthusiastic wavers in the crowd.From the entry waver
  • For some reason, they discourage loitering outside the store, but encourage it inside.From the entry loiter
  • His parents cut him off to encourage him to find a job.From the entry cut off
  • If you set out birdseed in the winter, cardinals will be encouraged to overwinter.From the entry birdseed
  • Many societies forbid marriage between parallel cousins, but encourage marriage between cross-cousins or second cross-cousins.From the entry cross-cousin
  • Many of his investee companies have been found to encourage fraud, regulators have said.From the entry investee
  • Earth up a potato crop several times during the season to encourage more tubers to grow.From the entry earth up
  • WinRAR shows a nag screen once its 40-day trial is over to encourage users to buy a license.From the entry nag screen
  • Bram Stoker's novel Dracula built on centuries-old stories of vampires and also encouraged new growth of the mythology.From the entry vampire
  • We have to get people out of their cars and encourage them to use alternative forms of transportation.From the entry transportation
  • It is my personal viewpoint that veganism should be not only accepted, but actively encouraged by those in power.From the entry viewpoint
  • Mother encouraged James to rely more on intelligence and less on testosterone to deal with the neighbor's son.From the entry testosterone
  • Factors known to encourage the growth of harmful bacteria inside cooling systems include the stagnation of the water.From the entry stagnation
  • The psychotherapist encouraged patients to describe their unresolved emotional problems.From the entry unresolved
  • The teachers at this school tend to force-feed their students information, rather than encourage critical thinking and debate.From the entry force-feed
  • Encourage the reviewee to do most of the talking.From the entry reviewee
  • Removing the shoots on the side of the plant will encourage it to grow upward instead of bushing out.From the entry bush out
  • She encourages us to strive to live in the moment.From the entry in the moment
  • You are cordially invited to the Social Club's tenth Anniversary Celebration of its Brick-and-Mortar Building. Dress: Black Tie and White Tie are encouraged, but optional.From the entry black tie
  • Cf. Sandman, a mythical character in European folklore who puts people to sleep and encourages and inspires beautiful dreams by sprinkling magical sand onto their eyes.From the entry sand
  • But he was encouraged by the diversity of simpler eyes among invertebrates.2026 February 23, Carl Zimmer, “The Rise of Eyes Began With Just One. Even Charles Darwin was puzzled by the evolution of the vertebrate…. From the entry cyclops
  • Others pushed “underconsumption core,” which encourages users to show off their off-trend, but still thoroughly wearable, clothes.2025 March 9, Callie Holtermann, “Eclectic Grandpa, Coastal Grandma, Mob Wife? Fast Fads Are Tiring Out Gen Z”, in New York Times, page A.1. From the entry underconsumption core
  • European alarmism has already encouraged a growing chorus of Russian elites to engage in mirror imaging.2025 December 20, Hanna Notte, “Europe risks a self-fulfilling prophecy over Russia threat”, in FT Weekend, London: The Financial Times…. From the entry mirror imaging
  • “I did not initiate, welcome, encourage, engage in, or learn from much less enjoy, Bailey’s tirade.2024 July 25, Kara Scannell, “Judge who ordered Trump to pay $454 million says he was ‘accosted’ by lawyer and won’t recuse himself from…. From the entry defamatorily
  • It makes status hypersalient, weakens social ties, and encourages us to choose prestige over purpose.2024 September 25, Emi Nietfeld, “The Rich and the Poor: How inequality messes with teenagers’ minds”, in Slate. From the entry hypersalient
  • Newton said that she worried trends like bookshelf wealth encourage overconsumption.2024 January 15, Madison Malone Kircher, “Do You Have 'Bookshelf Wealth'?”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times…. From the entry bookshelf wealth
  • Boomers and Xers were told to stay silent, but millennials and Zers were encouraged to speak up.2022, Mark White, 5-Gen Leadership: Leading 5 Generations in Schools in the 2020s, Corwin Press, SAGE Publishing, →ISBN. From the entry Zer
  • He also said that he would not use his platform to publicly encourage others to be vaccinated.2021 September 28, Scott Cacciola, “LeBron James said he was vaccinated, after previously evading the question.”, in The New York Times…. From the entry platform
  • But, she proved remarkably hard to actually encourage to sink at any pace but her own.2021 February 3, Drachinifel, 21:35 from the start, in Guadalcanal Campaign - Santa Cruz (IJN 2 : 2 USN), archived from the original on 04…. From the entry hightail it
  • "I'm encouraged by recent reductions in the national 'R' rate and a drop in COVID-related hospitalisations.2021 March 10, “Network News: Grand Central targets March 27 for resumption of trains”, in RAIL, number 926, page 18. From the entry hospitalisation
  • We encourage methods that promote a platform for all viewpoints, not just polarizing views, to be heard.2020 August 10, Dana Mowls Carroll, Rachel L Denlinger-Apte, Sarah S Dermody, Jessica L King, Melissa Mercincavage, Lauren R Pacek, Tracy…. From the entry self-segment

Meaning of encourage

  1. verb To mentally support; to motivate, give courage, hope or spirit.
  2. verb To spur on, strongly recommend.
  3. verb To foster, give help or patronage.

Full definition of encourage

Questions about encourage in a sentence

How do you use encourage in a sentence?
Encourage is used as a verb. For example: “I encouraged him during his race.”
What is a short sentence with encourage?
“I encouraged him during his race.”
What does encourage mean?
Encourage means to mentally support; to motivate, give courage, hope or spirit.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: encourage (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:

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