enable

/ɛnˈeɪbəl/

/ɛnˈeɪbəl/

Other forms: enabled; enables; enabling

When you make something possible, you enable it. Your good grades might enable you to get into your first-choice college. And a great teacher enabled you to get such good grades.

Enable has taken on the meaning of allowing or even helping someone continue to do something they really shouldn't. If your mother writes note after note to get you out of school for no good reason, she is enabling your habit of playing hooky. While you might think she's being cool, a therapist might call her an enabler and give her part of the blame.

Definitions of enable

1. verb

   render capable or able for some task
   “This skill will enable you to find a job on Wall Street”

   “The rope enables you to secure yourself when you climb the mountain”

   antonyms:

   disable

   make unable to perform a certain action

   types:

   equip

   provide with abilities or understanding

   empower, endow, endue, gift, imbue, indue, invest

   give qualities or abilities to

   cover

   invest with a large or excessive amount of something

   type of:

   alter, change, modify

   cause to change; make different; cause a transformation