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Glite Dictionary
🚫 Allowing bad behavior 🔓 Making possible 📄 Clear patent details
enablement

enablement

1 7.5
Helping someone continue harmful actions, often in cases of addiction or abuse
  • noun
  • /ɪˈneɪbəlmənt/
translation icon : facilitación
  • The therapist warned the family that their constant bailouts could lead to enablement rather than recovery.

Examples

  • We have all tried to help you... but there comes a time when support becomes enablement... and we are well past that point.

    Dark Blue (2002)

  • The special education teacher is a good resource for understanding the fine line between support and enablement.

    Academic text (2014)

  • Allowing her brother to stay home instead of seeking help for his addiction is a clear example of enablement.

  • Providing him with money for drugs is just enablement; he needs to face the consequences of his actions.

Antonyms

intervention
  • Specialized
108 4.8

An action to improve health or fix problems

How Enabling

enablement
1 7.5
encouragement
89 1.7
tolerance
160 3.7

Surface Forms

enablement singular
enablements plural

Morphology

enablement = enable (semi-transparent) = en + able + ment

The form is clearly built from 'enable' + '-ment', but this addiction/abuse sense is a specialized extension that is not fully predictable from the parts.

Etymology

Enablement comes from the parts en- meaning 'make' and able meaning 'able', the same root as ability. In its harmful sense it is like 'making someone able' to keep their bad behaviour, so enablement means supporting or allowing actions that stop someone from changing.