ENABLE

enable

(verb) render capable or able for some task; ā€œThis skill will enable you to find a job on Wall Streetā€; ā€œThe rope enables you to secure yourself when you climb the mountainā€

Source: WordNet® 3.1


Etymology

Verb

enable (third-person singular simple present enables, present participle enabling, simple past and past participle enabled)

To make somebody able (to do, or to be, something); to give sufficient ability or power to do or to be; to give strength or ability to.

Synonyms: empower, endow

To affirm; to make firm and strong.

To qualify or approve for some role or position; to render sanction or authorization to; to confirm suitability for.

Synonyms: let, permit, authorize

To yield the opportunity or provide the possibility for something; to provide with means, opportunities, and the like.

Synonym: allow

To imply or tacitly confer excuse for an action or a behavior.

(electronics) To put a circuit element into action by supplying a suitable input pulse.

(chiefly, electronics, computing) To activate, to make operational (especially of a function of an electronic or mechanical device).

Synonyms: activate, turn on

Antonym: disable

Anagrams

• baleen

Source: Wiktionary


En*a"ble, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Enabled; p. pr. & vb. n. Enabling.]

1. To give strength or ability to; to make firm and strong. [Obs.] "Who hath enabled me." 1 Tim. i. 12. Receive the Holy Ghost, said Christ to his apostles, when he enabled them with priestly power. Jer. Taylor.

2. To make able (to do, or to be, something); to confer sufficient power upon; to furnish with means, opportunities, and the like; to render competent for; to empower; to endow. Temperance gives Nature her full play, and enables her to exert herself in all her force and vigor. Addison.

Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition



RESET




Word of the Day

22 February 2025

ANALYSIS

(noun) the use of closed-class words instead of inflections: e.g., ā€˜the father of the brideā€™ instead of ā€˜the brideā€™s fatherā€™


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Coffee Trivia

The expression ā€œcoffee breakā€ was first attested in 1952 in glossy magazine advertisements by the Pan-American Coffee Bureau.

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