Incentivizes

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To drive individuals or groups to engage in particular actions by offering rewards or other benefits
2. Encourages someone to act in a desired way by offering advantages or benefits
3. Promotes specific behaviors by providing incentives or positive reinforcement

Etymology: "Incentivizes" is the third-person singular form of "incentivize," so its history is that of the verb it inflects. The verb is formed from "incentive" plus the suffix "-ize." That suffix goes back to Ancient Greek "-izein," which passed into Late Latin as "-izare," then through Middle French "-iser" and Middle English "-isen," and it became the common English "-ize" that turns nouns and adjectives into verbs meaning "to make into" or "to treat in a certain way." The noun it builds on, "incentive," comes from the Latin "incentivum," meaning something that sets a thing on fire or stirs it up, and that sense of kindling is what lingers in the modern meaning. "Incentive" supplied the core idea of something that provokes a person to move, and "incentivize" turns that noun into an action: to supply the incentive. The verb is a modern formation, so it belongs to the same family of coinages as "prioritize" and "monetize."

Synonyms: motivates, encourages, stimulates, promotes, drives

Antonyms: discourages, dissuades, demotivates, detracts, hinders