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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
discourage
verb
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADVERB
actively
▪ You certainly wasted studio time and resources, so one was actively discouraged.
▪ In this day of the lawsuit, touching a student is often actively discouraged by school administrators.
▪ On the contrary, some seemed to actively discourage it.
▪ Contact between the different groups was actively discouraged.
also
▪ Leaving on an interior light as well during the night can also discourage a potential burglar.
▪ Jobs also discourage accountability, because they reward people not for getting the necessary work done but for doing their jobs.
▪ Regular watering will also discourage them.
▪ The middle-class skills - such as public speaking - required to be an effective councillor may also discourage many manual workers.
▪ Recessions cause firms to scrap equipment; they also discourage new investment, all the more so if interest rates are high.
▪ It also discourages the opposition from closing him down. emailinc True, but they seemed pretty cohesive, and confident.
■ NOUN
company
▪ Possible underpricing of its services, which could discourage competition from private companies.
▪ All the Republicans except Buchanan support global free trade and oppose direct measures to discourage companies from moving manufacturing plants overseas.
investment
▪ These fluctuations can be very damaging to business confidence and may discourage long-term investment.
▪ The Kemp Commission took the same position, saying those taxes discourage saving and investment.
▪ Taxes on investment may discourage high-risk projects.
▪ High interest rates lead to the following problems: They may discourage investment plans and hence long-term growth.
▪ The aim of this is to avoid discouraging new investment, although the 10% share still represents an open-ended liability.
▪ The farmers say that fear of being bought out will discourage future investment in their land.
▪ Recessions cause firms to scrap equipment; they also discourage new investment, all the more so if interest rates are high.
people
▪ If we believed it would have an adverse effect on claims, we would discourage people from buying timber-frame.
▪ We wanted very much to discourage people from porting their current applications over to the Macintosh.
▪ This could discourage people from driving ten miles to buy their groceries.
▪ But frankly, we try to discourage people from our business who are too interested in money.
▪ The welfare system, runs this view, makes things worse because it discourages people from working and rewards undesirable behaviour.
▪ Learning the codes discourages some people from attempting to type, he said.
▪ It would impose taxes on business and individuals which would discourage enterprise and discourage people from trying to work hard.
▪ It was a film in a series called Vanishing Peoples, which was discouraging.
use
▪ It is obvious that the relatively low price of high grade primary aggregates discourages efficient use of available resources and increases wastage.
▪ Deductions would be eliminated in most cases to close loopholes and discourage the use of tax shelters.
▪ Mr Bergg said the Liberal Democrates would discourage the use of cars as much as possible.
▪ Fourth, the fund may lack the accounting systems and performance measurement techniques to incorporate futures, so discouraging their use.
▪ A draft urged governments to tax up the price of tobacco to discourage its use.
▪ Some recycling might be promoted by regulatory changes: building regulations, for example, often discourage the use of recycled materials.
▪ I have discouraged the use of adjectives in the last two chapters but here you can see them used with superb skill.
▪ The relative complexity of gastric crypt anatomy compared with colorectal mucosa has discouraged its use as an experimental model in proliferation research.
■ VERB
become
▪ He becomes annoyed or discouraged if corrected too often.
▪ Colin, on the other hand, became discouraged and let things slip.
▪ Its official policy is anti-Western, and it obstructs aid organisations with so much red tape that they have become discouraged.
▪ Unfortunately, after 11 years living here, I too am becoming discouraged.
▪ After several unsuccessful efforts, they would become discouraged and often would begin to spit up.
▪ As time passed, Mary and her husband become more and more discouraged and exhausted.
▪ It matters little that the teacher exhorts; the unmotivated students become discouraged quickly, they quit, and become our failures.
encourage
▪ There is a separate question of whether free flows of long-term capital can be encouraged while discouraging some short-term capital movements.
▪ Meetings around the water cooler are encouraged rather than discouraged.
▪ It should unite rather than divide, encourage rather than discourage.
try
▪ I tried to discourage him, but in the end he became a little bit of a nuisance, you know?
▪ The state Department of Agriculture tries to discourage the practice.
▪ In the early days Busacher had tried to discourage him.
▪ But frankly, we try to discourage people from our business who are too interested in money.
▪ What do we do, them or try to discourage their supporters from voting?
▪ But... try again without being discouraged...
▪ Many teenagers today would live in their trainers, given half a chance, but try to discourage this.
▪ Wesley tried to discourage his friend from going.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ Although the troubles in the financial markets have made his cautious, Reid said they haven't discouraged him.
▪ Girls are sometimes discouraged from studying subjects like engineering and physics.
▪ Higher cigarette prices do not seem to discourage people from smoking.
▪ Higher taxes are likely to discourage investment.
▪ It is a well known fact that a negative working environment discourages creativity.
▪ Leave the lights on when you're out in order to discourage burglars.
▪ Put the plant in a cold room to discourage growth.
▪ The cameras should discourage shoplifters.
▪ Trying to lose weight fast will only discourage you.
▪ We need to discourage the use of cars for short journeys.
▪ What discouraged me most was our lack of progress in the pay negotiations.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ At the very least your notes should not discourage you in this aim.
▪ Fourth, the fund may lack the accounting systems and performance measurement techniques to incorporate futures, so discouraging their use.
▪ If this report that the army is planning a coup is serious, then the army must be discouraged from doing that.
▪ The air filled with the strong scent of herbs being burned to discourage elemental spirits.
▪ The complexities of scheduling thousands of students for individual courses discourage change.
▪ These things are not written under any feeling of discouragement, much less to discourage others.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Discourage

Discourage \Dis*cour"age\, n. Lack of courage; cowardliness.

Discourage

Discourage \Dis*cour"age\ (?; 48), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Discouraged; p. pr. & vb. n. Discouraging.] [Pref. dis- + courage: cf. OF. descoragier, F. d['e]courager: pref. des- (L. dis-) + corage, F. courage. See Courage.]

  1. To extinguish the courage of; to dishearten; to depress the spirits of; to deprive of confidence; to deject; -- the opposite of encourage; as, he was discouraged in his undertaking; he need not be discouraged from a like attempt.

    Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged.
    --Col. iii. 21.

  2. To dishearten one with respect to; to discountenance; to seek to check by disfavoring; to deter one from; as, they discouraged his efforts.

    Syn: To dishearten; dispirit; depress; deject; dissuade; disfavor.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
discourage

mid-15c., discoragen, from Middle French descourager, from Old French descoragier, from des- "away" (see dis-) + corage (see courage). Related: Discouraged; discouragement; discouraging.

Wiktionary
discourage

n. (cx rare English) Lack of courage vb. 1 (context transitive English) To extinguish the courage of; to dishearten; to depress the spirits of; to deprive of confidence; to deject. 2 (context transitive English) To persuade somebody not to do something.

WordNet
discourage
  1. v. try to prevent; show opposition to; "We should discourage this practice among our youth" [syn: deter]

  2. deprive of courage or hope; take away hope from; cause to feel discouraged [ant: encourage]

  3. admonish or counsel in terms of someone's behavior; "I warned him not to go too far"; "I warn you against false assumptions"; "She warned him to be quiet" [syn: warn, admonish, monish]

Usage examples of "discourage".

Lest, however, he might again fall into the hands of the raider, he discouraged Abdul Mourak in the further prosecution of his pursuit, assuring the Abyssinian that Achmet Zek commanded a large and dangerous force, and also that he was marching rapidly toward the south.

Even in her worst moments on Amabile or in her most discouraging moments of search, she had not been this helpless.

They might hit us again before we reach Anaheim, and I want to discourage them from trying.

I could make my science useful, because the answers given by the numerical figures are often so obscure that I have felt discouraged, and I very seldom tried to make any use of my calculus.

Most antiabortion activists, for example, have openly discouraged legislative allies from even pursuing those compromise measures that would have significantly reduced the incidence of the procedure popularly known as partial-birth abortion, because the image the procedure evokes in the mind of the public has helped them win converts to their position.

When it is considered that many amateur writers have been discouraged from becoming competitors, and that few, if any, of the professional authors can afford to write for nothing, and, of course, have not been candidates for the honorary prize at Drury Lane, we may confidently pronounce that, as far as regards NUMBER, the present is undoubtedly the Augustan age of English poetry.

Or perhaps they foresaw the bacchanalian rite of spring break at Myrtle Beach, and tried reaching across the centuries to discourage a very different type of hajj.

If Cranston had dropped in more often, Weston could have asked him to discourage Kelford from the incessant practice on the billiard table but Cranston had apparently lost all interest in the hunt for an unknown murderer called the Blur.

They returned to Wrentham in September 1916 deeply discouraged by the indifferent reception they had been given on their summer Chautauqua tour.

For great distances in all directions rugged hills and arid stretches of dead sea bottom discourage intercourse with them, and since there is practically no such thing as foreign commerce upon warlike Barsoom, where each nation is sufficient to itself, really little has been known relative to the court of the Jeddak of Kaol and the numerous strange, but interesting, people over whom he rules.

Lily advised against her better judgment, but Alden was so happily energized at the moment when he had been sloping around the house so dispiritedly for weeks even as he acted at keeping busy making plans and rummaging in the barn for agrarian implements to polish and sharpen and balance, that Lily could not bring herself to discourage him now.

Sergeant Doakes would do something or other to discourage my hobby, and I had thought long and hard about what to do when he did.

But as her mother and she sat in the crowded waiting room hour after hour--because of the war doctors were scarce--she felt discouraged.

Betrothees would head out, and Nada would try to discourage Dolph from coming along, while Electra would encourage him.

Holmes liked to sharpen their wits against each other, Fields doing what he could to discourage them.