enfranchise
Americanverb (used with object)
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to admit to citizenship, especially to the right of voting.
By about 1860, most white men without property had been enfranchised.
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to give (a person or group) the rights or privileges of full participation in society or in any community or organization, especially the opportunity to influence policy or make their voice heard.
The online forum enfranchises nurses, giving them a sense of belonging both to the profession and to the organization they work for.
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to set free; liberate, as from slavery or from some disabling constraint.
Some ideologies enfranchise innovative creativity, while others suppress it.
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to endow (a city, constituency, etc.) with municipal or parliamentary rights.
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to grant a franchise to.
The Chicago White Sox were enfranchised in Iowa in 1894, when the team was known as the Sioux City Cornhuskers.
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British. to give the tenant of (a leasehold) the right to purchase freehold of the property or to extend the lease, often up to the end of life.
verb
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to grant the power of voting to, esp as a right of citizenship
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to liberate, as from servitude
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(in England) to invest (a town, city, etc) with the right to be represented in Parliament
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English law to convert (leasehold) to freehold
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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enfranchisesimple
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enfranchisessimple
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have enfranchisedperfect
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has enfranchisedperfect
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am enfranchisingprogressive
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are enfranchisingprogressive
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is enfranchisingprogressive
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have been enfranchisingperfect progressive
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has been enfranchisingperfect progressive
Past
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enfranchisedsimple
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had enfranchisedperfect
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was enfranchisingprogressive
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were enfranchisingprogressive
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had been enfranchisingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of enfranchise
First recorded in 1505–15; from Middle French, Old French enfranchiss- (long stem of enfranchir “to free”), equivalent to en- en- 1 + franch- “free” ( see frank 1) + iss- -ish 2
Explanation
The verb enfranchise is used when a group of people are given voting rights or freedoms they didn't have before. Many people under the age of 18 would like lawmakers to enfranchise their peer group so they can vote. Enfranchise traces back to the Old French word enfranchiss, a combination of en-, meaning "make, put in," and enfranchir, meaning "to set or make free." In the 1680s, enfranchise came to mean "to admit to membership in a state," something that usually came with the right to vote. You may know the word disenfranchised, an adjective that describes people who lack rights or liberties. To enfranchise is to give or restore rights to the disenfranchised.
Vocabulary lists containing enfranchise
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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:
It took the 15th Amendment, ratified more than 1½ years later, to enfranchise black Americans.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 1, 2026
If voters pass the measure, it goes back to the council to decide when — if ever — to enfranchise the immigrants.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 6, 2026
Pressure began building to enfranchise women voters in the early 20th century, notably in the southeastern state of Yucatan, said Lorenzo Meyer, a historian at the Colegio de Mexico.
From Reuters ● Sep. 9, 2023
He said his work is part of a mission to enfranchise and change the narrative of incarcerated people.
From Washington Post ● Jul. 25, 2021
“Not because it enfranchises black men, but because it does not enfranchise all women, black and white.”
From "Votes for Women!" by Winifred Conkling
“What I don’t want to see is a system that enfranchises some people and not others and we need the research to really tell what happened here,” Mr. de Blasio said.
From New York Times ● Jul. 24, 2021
Pass another voting rights act that enfranchises as many Americans as possible.
From New York Times ● Jan. 7, 2021
“A historical atlas enfranchises the whole nation,” he said.
From New York Times ● Dec. 25, 2013
The new law, to become operative when a new Diet is elected this spring, enfranchises 9,600,000 adult males.
From Time Magazine Archive
“Not because it enfranchises black men, but because it does not enfranchise all women, black and white.”
From "Votes for Women!" by Winifred Conkling
Douglass may not have held a role as a judge, legislator, or even enfranchised citizen, yet he nonetheless played a pivotal role in shaping the nation’s understanding of equal citizenship in the Civil War era.
From Slate ● Jul. 24, 2026
But the Electoral Commission says only one in five newly enfranchised 16 and 17-year-olds registered to vote ahead of May's local elections.
From BBC ● Oct. 10, 2022
The 13th, 14th and 15th amendments abolished slavery, guaranteed the equal citizenship of Black people and enfranchised Black men.
From Washington Post ● Jan. 18, 2021
On the plus side, he commends the nation’s eventual extension of political rights to far more people than the landholding white male minority enfranchised in the Revolutionary era.
From New York Times ● Nov. 10, 2020
The Nineteenth Amendment enfranchised women, but some states quickly moved to deny nonwhite women—and men—the right to vote.
From "Votes for Women!" by Winifred Conkling
"Those are two great examples of private sector firms enfranchising themselves in our mission to make Britain a clean energy superpower."
From BBC ● Apr. 11, 2025
Successors Terry McAuliffe and Ralph Northam, both Democrats, went further, enfranchising about 300,000.
From Washington Post ● Mar. 31, 2023
“To have the person who was always part of enfranchising the community be disenfranchised the way he was, was unconscionable,” Norton said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 7, 2023
But other Radicals thought the federal government could go further than enfranchising black men.
From New York Times ● Feb. 15, 2020
Elizabeth Cady Stanton made the argument in favor of enfranchising women of the District of Columbia.
From History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II by Stanton, Elizabeth Cady
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.
