Embolden

//ɛmˈbəʊld(ə)n// verb

verb ·Uncommon ·College level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To render (someone) bolder or more courageous; to encourage, to hearten. transitive

    "Steel your thoughts, ſharp your reſolue, imboldẽ your spirit, graſp your ſvvords; alarum miſchief, & vvith an vndãted brovv, out ſcout the grim oppoſition of most menacing perill."

  2. 2
    give encouragement to wordnet
  3. 3
    To format (text) in boldface. transitive

    "This note introduces several additional features of LATEX: […] ▪ The use of text style commands, including the \emph command to emphasize text, the \textbf command to embolden text, and the \texttt command to produce typewriter style text."

Synonyms

All synonyms
cheerabetadvocateaid and abetanimateassure

Antonyms

All antonyms
abash

Example

More examples

"Steel your thoughts, ſharp your reſolue, imboldẽ your spirit, graſp your ſvvords; alarum miſchief, & vvith an vndãted brovv, out ſcout the grim oppoſition of most menacing perill."

Etymology

From bold (adjective) + em- -en (variant of en- -en (circumfix forming transitive verbs denoting an increase in, or intensification of, the quality denoted by the enclosed word)). Compare Middle English embolden, enbolden (“to make bold, encourage”) (modern English embold, enbold, imbold (obsolete)), and inboldysshen (“to embolden, encourage”).

Related phrases

re-embolden

More for "embolden"

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.