Etymology

pour encourager les autres

Today it means: In order to warn or intimidate others (especially by making an example of someone or something). Full definition →

French pour
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The story

  1. French · borrowed frompour
  2. English todaypour encourager les autres

Unadapted borrowing from French pour (preposition) encourager (verb) les pl (article) autres pl (adjective) (literally “in order to encourage the others”), as used French writer Voltaire in 1759 in his satire Candide, in reference to the execution of Admiral John Byng.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.