Enable

Quick meaning: Enable is a verb meaning 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.

Meaning

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.

More Meanings

1. To affirm; to make firm and strong.
2. To qualify or approve for some role or position; to render sanction or authorization to; to confirm suitability for.
3. To yield the opportunity or provide the possibility for something; to provide with means, opportunities, and the like.
4. To imply or tacitly confer excuse for an action or a behavior.
5. (electronics) To put a circuit element into action by supplying a suitable input pulse.
6. (chiefly electronics, computing) To activate, to make operational (especially of a function of an electronic or mechanical device).

Example Sentences

His parents enabled him to go on buying drugs.

Temperance gives Nature her full play, and enables her to exert herself in all her force and vigor.

During 1971-72, spare Type 4s on other regions enabled the whole class to be sidelined, with Class 43s going first.

April 16, 2018, Norimitsu Onishi and Selam Gebrekidan writing in The New York Times, ‘They Eat Money’: How Mandela’s Political Heirs Grow Rich Off Corruption

Word Forms

• enables
• enabling
• enabled

Synonyms for enable

Depending on context, synonyms include empower, endow, let, permit, authorize, allow.

Antonyms for enable

Common opposites include disable, incapacitate, disenable.

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include enablement, habilitation, empower, afford, able, permitting.

Commonly Confused & Compared Words

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