A good encourage synonym has to match what you are doing to the other person: support, inspire and reassure build confidence, urge and motivate push toward action, and promote or foster help a habit or idea spread. Those three jobs do not mix well, so pick the job before the word.
Each group below gives another word for encourage, and the page shows which ones take a person and which take a thing, and covers encouraged, encourages and encouraging too.
Swatch at a glance
Best swaps
support, inspire, motivate, urge, fosterPart of speech
Verb (encourage someone to do something)Most formal
embolden, stimulate, furtherMost casual
cheer on, egg on, give a pushStrongest
urge, push, spurAntonyms
discourage, deter, dissuadeWatch out
Promote and foster take a thing, not a person. You foster teamwork, but you do not foster a colleague to apply.Word forms covered
encourages, encouraged, encouraging
Three jobs, three sets of words
Encourage covers emotional support, a push toward action and help for something to grow. The table keeps them apart.
| Job | Synonyms | Sample line |
|---|---|---|
| Build confidence | support, reassure, hearten, uplift, cheer on | Her coach cheered her on all season. |
| Push toward action | urge, motivate, prompt, spur, nudge | The bonus spurred staff to finish early. |
| Help a thing grow | promote, foster, boost, nurture | The new park fosters a sense of community. |
From reassure to push: reading the scale
Gentle sits on the left of the strip above, forceful on the right. Reassure only calms a worry. Support stands beside someone. Inspire gives them a reason of their own to act. Urge adds pressure in words, and push means you keep at it until they move.
If the reader might feel nagged, step one notch down the scale. A manager who urges every week starts to sound like a manager who pushes.
Grammar that trips people up
Most of these verbs follow the same pattern as encourage: verb + person + to + action. You can urge, motivate, inspire, prompt, persuade or push someone to try. A few do not work that way.
- Support takes in plus an ing form: we support you in learning to drive.
- Cheer on and egg on take just the person: friends egged him on.
- Promote, foster, boost and nurture take a thing: foster curiosity, boost sales.
- Reassure takes that or about: she reassured me that the test was fair.
Encourage synonym swaps, before and after
- Teachers encourage students to read daily becomes teachers urge students to read daily.
- Her words encouraged me becomes her words heartened me.
- The policy encourages recycling becomes the policy promotes recycling.
- Parents should encourage creativity becomes parents should nurture creativity.
- He encouraged his team before the match becomes he fired up his team before the match (casual).
- Low prices encourage spending becomes low prices stimulate spending.
A volunteer email reads: "We encourage you to sign up, and we encourage you to bring a friend." Changing the second verb helps: "We encourage you to sign up, and we invite you to bring a friend." Invite keeps the warm tone without the repeat.
Encouraged synonym and encouraging synonym picks
The past tense works like the base verb: encouraged becomes supported, urged, inspired, motivated or promoted. As an adjective, though, I feel encouraged means something else, closer to hopeful. Good swaps there are heartened, reassured, hopeful, uplifted and optimistic.
For an encourages synonym, keep the s on the swap: the app encourages saving becomes the app promotes saving. For encouraging as a describing word (encouraging results), use promising, hopeful or heartening. The encouraging synonyms page goes further.
Encourage lookalikes to avoid
Force and pressure remove choice, so they are not kind swaps. Allow only means you do not block something, which is weaker than encourage. Egg on often hints at a bad idea: kids egged him on to jump the fence. Empower means giving power or ability, not just a pep talk; see empower for that sense.
Antonyms run from soft to firm: dishearten and discourage affect feelings, while deter, dissuade and hinder stop an action. High fees deter new members.
Picking a word for the setting
In a work email, encourage, invite and urge are polite and clear. Use urge only when something is time-sensitive. In an essay, foster, promote and stimulate describe policies well. With friends, try cheer on, back or give a little push. Browse action verbs for livelier picks.
Frequently asked questions
Which encourage synonym works best?
Support is the safest all-around swap for people, and promote is the safest for things. If you want the person to act, motivate or urge fits better.
Encourage sounds plain. Which word is more formal?
Foster, stimulate and further sound formal and suit reports. Embolden is formal too, but it means giving courage, often for something bold.
Can I use inspire instead of encourage?
Often, yes. Inspire is warmer and suggests the person found their own reason, while encourage can be simple advice. You can inspire a class, but you rarely inspire someone to fill in a form.
What is the opposite of encourage?
Discourage is the direct opposite. Deter and dissuade mean stopping someone from acting, and dishearten means taking away their hope.
Is motivate a synonym for encourage?
Yes, when the goal is action. Motivate focuses on the reason or drive behind the action, so it pairs well with goals and rewards.
What word can replace encourage on a resume?
Try mentored, championed, promoted or fostered. Fostered a culture of feedback says more than encouraged feedback.