verb ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Verb

1. 1
   To bring upon oneself or expose oneself to, especially something inconvenient, harmful, or onerous; to become liable or subject to. transitive

   "Near-synonym: contract (debts, etc.)"

2. 2
   receive a specified treatment (abstract) wordnet
3. 3
   To bring upon oneself or expose oneself to, especially something inconvenient, harmful, or onerous; to become liable or subject to.; To render (somebody, or oneself) liable or subject to. transitive

   "Near-synonyms: entail, invoke"

4. 4
   make oneself subject to; bring upon oneself; become liable to wordnet
5. 5
   To enter or pass into. obsolete, transitive

Show 1 more definition

6. 6
   To fall within a period or scope; to occur; to run into danger. intransitive, obsolete

Synonyms

All synonyms

acquirearouseattractbe responsible forbring downbring on

Example

More examples

"He recently had the bad luck to incur his boss' wrath and got sent out to work in the boondocks."

Etymology

From Middle English incurren, from Anglo-Norman encurir, Middle French encourir, from Old French encorre, from Latin incurrere.

Related phrases

bring uponrun into

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