Disempowering
adj, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 present participle and gerund of disempower form-of, gerund, participle, present
- 1 Causing a loss of power or agency; debilitating.
"On the contrary, Bernstein argues, by presenting a benevolent face to students while failing to change the underlying rules of pedagogic discourse, progressive pedagogies may be potentially more disempowering for students because they mask the workings of oppression and hence make it harder for students to name and usurp it."
- 2 Demoralizing.
"Losing the ability to work was very disempowering."
Example
More examples"On the contrary, Bernstein argues, by presenting a benevolent face to students while failing to change the underlying rules of pedagogic discourse, progressive pedagogies may be potentially more disempowering for students because they mask the workings of oppression and hence make it harder for students to name and usurp it."
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.