Meanings
- ironicIn order to warn or intimidate others (especially by making an example of someone or something).
Indeed, some may wish to make withdrawal as painful as possible pour encourager les autres.
2016 March 1, Nicholas Wright, “Can Britain's bureaucracy handle a Brexit?”, in The Guardian, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 01 Mar 20162 more examples
Whenever trouble threatened, Avitabile hanged a few of the citizens from the walls of Government House pour encourager les autres; and when trouble did occur, he doubled the hangings and had a daily roster for suspension with a next-for-the-noose column.
1927 June, U. P. A., “L’Oiseau rouge”, in Journal of the Royal Army Medical Corps, volume 48, number 6, page 464He added jokingly: “So very inclusive, in fact, there were a couple of places where everybody was murdered and butchered, pour encourager les autres.”
2023 July 1, Catherine Lough, “Genghis Khan ‘a Blairite before his time’”, in The Daily Telegraph, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 01 Jul 2023
Origin
- Frenchpour
- Englishpour 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.
More words from French
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
pour encourager les autres. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/pour%20encourager%20les%20autres
“pour encourager les autres.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/pour%20encourager%20les%20autres. Accessed November 5, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “pour encourager les autres,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/pour%20encourager%20les%20autres.
Source: pour encourager les autres on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.