discouragement
Americannoun
-
discouragements
plural
-
an act or instance of discouraging.
- Antonyms:
- encouragement
-
the state of being discouraged.
- Synonyms:
- hopelessness, dejection, depression
- Antonyms:
- encouragement
-
something that discourages.
Poor health and poverty are grave discouragements.
- Synonyms:
- obstruction, obstacle, impediment, damper, deterrent
- Antonyms:
- encouragement
Synonym Usage
See despair.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of discouragement
1555–65; < Middle French descouragement, Old French descoragement. See discourage, -ment
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
While ChatGPT occasionally offered discouragement, only the chatbots from Snap and Anthropic reliably refused these requests, according to the researchers.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 3, 2026
The moments of discouragement are so heavy in this industry.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 9, 2025
Takes landing on the “not-so-good” side of the plate are accompanied by his passionate discouragement from leaving bad reviews based on his evaluations.
From Salon ● Nov. 1, 2023
It's this "sense of discouragement among Lao youth… that needs urgent attention," says Catherine Phuong, the deputy resident representative at the UN Development Programme in Laos.
From BBC ● Oct. 8, 2023
My speech remained the same, but my excitement evaporated into discouragement.
From "Sir Fig Newton and the Science of Persistence" by Sonja Thomas
We can have no illusions about the discouragements which lie ahead.
From Salon ● Mar. 5, 2023
May, who has written before on how to deal with anxiety and about her own experience as someone with Asperger’s syndrome, is an astute observer of life’s emotional discouragements.
From New York Times ● Dec. 22, 2020
A player who understands the disappointments and discouragements that not just Capitals fans, but a generation of Washington fans carry deep in their hearts.
From Washington Times ● May 6, 2018
This comes on top of other discouragements to growth.
From Economist ● Mar. 1, 2018
Success ultimately crowned his praiseworthy perseverance, but not until he had devoted sixteen years of unremunerated labour, enduring unexampled fatigue and discouragements.
From Curiosities of Impecuniosity by H. G. Somerville
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
