All 9 Uses of
enable
in
Bleak House
- To enable him to do this, the affectionate little dancing-mistress had toiled and laboured and would have toiled and laboured to that hour if her strength had lasted so long.†
Chpt 13-15
- That, all that time, he had been giving employment to a most deserving man, that he had been a benefactor to Coavinses, that he had actually been enabling Coavinses to bring up these charming children in this agreeable way, developing these social virtues!†
Chpt 13-15
- The system which had addressed him in exactly the same manner as it had addressed hundreds of other boys, all varying in character and capacity, had enabled him to dash through his tasks, always with fair credit and often with distinction, but in a fitful, dazzling way that had confirmed his reliance on those very qualities in himself which it had been most desirable to direct and train.†
Chpt 16-18
- Our coming to the ridge of a hill we had been ascending enabled our friend to point out Chesney Wold itself to us and diverted his attention from its master.†
Chpt 16-18 *
- "I take it," he says, making just as much and as little change in his position as will enable him to reach the glass to his lips with a round, full action, "that I am the only man alive (or dead either) that gets the value of a pipe out of YOU?"†
Chpt 19-21
- They enable Allegory, though it has cheeks like peaches, and knees like bunches of blossoms, and rosy swellings for calves to its legs and muscles to its arms, to look tolerably cool to-night.†
Chpt 22-24
- "You have been in shipwreck and peril since you left us, Mr. Woodcourt," said I, "but we can hardly call that a misfortune which enabled you to be so useful and so brave.†
Chpt 43-45
- Although I remember this conversation now, my head was in confusion at the time, and my power of attention hardly did more than enable me to understand that he entered into these particulars to divert me.†
Chpt 55-57
- Nothing but the strength of his purpose enables him to make it.†
Chpt 58-60
Definition:
-
(enable) to make possiblein various senses, including:
- to give someone the ability, knowledge, or authority to do something -- as in "The study will enable an informed discussion."
- to activate a computer system for use -- as in "You can enable the feature in the Settings Page."
- to permit someone to repeat bad behavior, so they reinforce the bad pattern -- as in "I don't want to enable her drug addiction."