Incourage or Encourage: Which Spelling Is Correct?

Unlike a pair of two valid words, encourage and incourage are not both correct: encourage is the standard modern spelling, and incourage is an archaic form that dropped out of use and now reads as a mistake. To encourage someone is to give them courage, hope, or support, "her teacher encouraged her to apply," "the news encouraged investors." The spelling begins with en-, a prefix meaning to put into or to make, attached to courage, so the word carries the picture of putting courage into a person. The wrong version, incourage, swaps that en- for in-; while it appeared in older English when spelling was still unsettled, no current dictionary accepts it. This places incourage vs encourage among the commonly confused words where an en- prefix gets mistakenly written as in-. This guide explains why the spelling is encourage, where the en- comes from, why incourage still tempts people, and a reliable way to keep the prefix right.

Which One Is Correct?

There is a clear answer here: encourage is correct, and incourage is not. Every major dictionary, Merriam-Webster, Oxford, Cambridge, lists encourage as the standard spelling for both the verb and its forms (encourages, encouraged, encouraging, encouragement). Incourage is labeled obsolete or simply absent.

If you want the word that means to hearten, support, or urge on, you want encourage, with the en- at the front. "We encourage questions," "he felt encouraged," "a word of encouragement." There is no context in modern writing where incourage is the right choice.

The practical rule of thumb: the prefix is always en-. Whenever you reach for this word, start it the way you start enable, ensure, and enrich. If you find yourself typing in-, pause, the word for giving someone courage takes en-, not in-. Because incourage is not merely a stylistic variant but an outright error today, keeping the en- is all you need to get it right every time.

Where Encourage Comes From

Understanding the word's history makes the spelling feel logical rather than arbitrary. Encourage entered English in the fifteenth century from Old French encoragier, which combines en- ("to put in, to cause to be") with corage, the ancestor of modern courage, meaning "heart" or "spirit." Put together, the pieces mean to put courage or heart into someone.

That en- is a busy, productive prefix in English, and it almost always means to make or to put into:

• enable — to make able
• enrich — to make rich
• enlighten — to bring light to
• endure — to make hard, to last through
• ensure — to make certain

Encourage sits squarely in this family: to encourage is to put courage into a person. Once you see it beside enable and enrich, the en- looks exactly where it belongs.

The courage half comes, through French, from the Latin cor, "heart," which is why courage has long been tied to the idea of heart and spirit. So the full word paints a small picture: you take courage (heart) and, with en-, you put it into someone who needs it. The spelling records that meaning, and there is no in- anywhere in the story.

Why People Write Incourage

If encourage is the only correct form, why does incourage keep appearing? The confusion comes from a few understandable sources.

The biggest is that en- and in- sound almost identical in an unstressed opening syllable. Say encourage aloud and the first vowel is a faint "uh," which could just as easily be spelled in- as en-. The ear offers no help, so writers guess, and in- is the more familiar prefix from words like income, insist, and invite.

A second cause is that English really does have both en- and in- prefixes, and they overlap in meaning (both can mean "in" or "make"). A handful of words even have historical variants, which trains people to expect flexibility. But encourage is not one of the flexible cases: it settled on en- long ago, and the in- form is dead.

A third factor is false analogy with in- words. Because in- is so common, and because a few pairs like ensure / insure are genuinely different words, writers over-apply in- and produce incourage, indure, or insue, all of which are wrong. The fix is not a better ear but a memory anchor: this word belongs with enable and enrich, so it takes en-.

Examples in Sentences

Seeing the correct spelling in context, next to the error, makes the en- stick.

Correct uses of encourage:

• Good coaches encourage their players after a loss.
• She was encouraged by the early results.
• We offer scholarships to encourage applicants from every background.
• His steady encouragement kept the team going.

Wrong → right corrections:

• I want to incourage you to keep writing. → I want to encourage you to keep writing.
• The mentor incouraged her students daily. → The mentor encouraged her students daily.
• A note of incouragement goes a long way. → A note of encouragement goes a long way.

In every correction the fix is the same: the opening in- becomes en-, matching the word's real prefix and its whole family of en- relatives.

Encourage vs Incourage: Side by Side

The table sets the correct spelling against the error.

Aspect	Encourage	Incourage
Status	correct, standard	obsolete, nonstandard
Prefix	en- (to put into)	in- (wrong here)
From	Old French encoragier	archaic variant
Family	enable, enrich, endure	(none in modern use)
Forms	encouraged, encouraging, encouragement	not accepted
Use it?	always	never

The key row is "prefix": encourage takes en-, the productive prefix meaning to put into, and incourage wrongly swaps in in-. Keep the en- and the word is always right.

How to Remember

The cleanest trick ties the spelling to the meaning. To encourage someone is to give them courage, and the little en- on the front is the act of putting it in. Picture handing over courage and sealing it with EN: you en-courage them, the way you en-able or en-rich them. Give courage, add en-.

A second cue uses the word family. Line up encourage with enable, ensure, enrich, and endure, all common, all beginning with en-, all meaning roughly to make or to put into. If those take en-, so does encourage. And if you are ever tempted by in-, remember its close cousins indure vs endure and insue vs ensue, where in- is likewise the outdated, incorrect choice and en- is the standard. The pattern is steady: for this group of words, en- is right and in- is wrong.

Conclusion

Encourage is the only correct spelling in modern English, and incourage is an archaic form that now counts as a mistake. The word comes from Old French encoragier, from en- ("to put into") plus corage ("heart, courage"), so encourage means to put courage into someone, and the spelling records that meaning with the same en- found in enable, enrich, ensure, and endure. People write incourage because en- and in- sound alike in an unstressed syllable, because English has both prefixes, and because the very common in- gets over-applied by analogy. The remedy is a single memory anchor: this word gives courage, and it does so with en-, never in-. Tie it to its en- relatives, and you will spell encourage and encouragement correctly every time. For more pairs where an en- prefix gets mistaken for in-, browse the full collection of commonly confused words.