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Discourage vs Reduce - What's the difference?

discourage | reduce | Related terms |

In transitive terms the difference between discourage and reduce

is that discourage is to persuade somebody not to do something while reduce is to bring to an inferior state or condition.

As a noun discourage

is {{cx|rare|lang=en}} Lack of courage.

discourage

English

Verb

(discourag)
  • To extinguish the courage of; to dishearten; to depress the spirits of; to deprive of confidence; to deject.
  • Don't be discouraged by the amount of work left to do: you'll finish it in good time.
  • * Bible, Col. iii. 21
  • Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged .
  • To persuade somebody not to do something.
  • * Abraham Lincoln
  • Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can.

    Antonyms

    * encourage

    See also

    * deter * dissuade

    Noun

    (-)
  • Lack of courage
  • Synonyms

    * (lack of courage) cowardliness

    reduce

    English

    Verb

  • To bring down the size, quantity, quality, value or intensity of something; to diminish, to lower, to impair.
  • * to reduce weight, speed, heat, expenses, price, personnel etc.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2012-01
  • , author=Stephen Ledoux , title=Behaviorism at 100 , volume=100, issue=1, page=60 , magazine= citation , passage=Becoming more aware of the progress that scientists have made on behavioral fronts can reduce the risk that other natural scientists will resort to mystical agential accounts when they exceed the limits of their own disciplinary training.}}
  • To lose weight.
  • To bring to an inferior rank; to degrade, to demote.
  • * to reduce a sergeant to the ranks
  • * An ancient but reduced family. --.
  • * Nothing so excellent but a man may fasten upon something belonging to it, to reduce it. --.
  • * Having reduced their foe to misery beneath their fears. -- .
  • * Hester Prynne was shocked at the condition to which she found the clergyman reduced . --.
  • *
  • Neither [Jones] nor I (in 1966) could conceive of reducing our "science" to the ultimate absurdity of reading Finnish newspapers almost a century and a half old in order to establish "priority."
  • To humble; to conquer; to subdue; to capture.
  • * to reduce a province or a fort
  • To bring to an inferior state or condition.
  • * to reduce a city to ashes
  • (cooking) To decrease the liquid content of food by boiling much of its water off.
  • (chemistry) To add electrons / hydrogen or to remove oxygen.
  • (metallurgy) To produce metal from ore by removing nonmetallic elements in a smelter.
  • (mathematics) To simplify an equation or formula without changing its value.
  • (legal) To convert to written form (Usage note: this verb almost always take the phrase "to writing").
  • * It is important that all business contracts be reduced to writing.
  • (medicine) To perform a reduction; to restore a fracture or dislocation to the correct alignment.
  • (military) To reform a line or column from (a square).
  • Synonyms

    * (to bring down) cut, decrease, lower

    Antonyms

    * (to bring down) increase

    See also

    * reducing agent

    References

    * ----