All 6 Uses of
enable
in
Black Boy
- My fantasies were a moral bulwark that enabled me to feel I was keeping my emotional integrity whole, a support that enabled my personality to limp through days lived under the threat of violence.†
Chpt 1.2 *enabled = made possible
- My fantasies were a moral bulwark that enabled me to feel I was keeping my emotional integrity whole, a support that enabled my personality to limp through days lived under the threat of violence.†
Chpt 1.2
- There were hours when hunger would make me weak, would make me sway while walking, would make my heart give a sudden wild spurt of beating that would shake my body and make me breathless; but the happiness of being free would lift me beyond hunger, would enable me to discipline the sensations of my body to the extent that I could temporarily forget.†
Chpt 1.5enable = make possible
- I began to eat warm food and to my surprise found that regular meals enabled me to read faster.†
Chpt 1.13enabled = made possible
- My reading in sociology had enabled me to discern many strange types of Negro characters, to identify many modes of Negro behavior; and what moved me above all was the frequency of mental illness, that tragic toll that the urban environment exacted of the black peasant.†
Chpt 2.16
- But now life had tossed them together, and they were learning to know the sentiments of their neighbors for the first time; their talking was enabling them to sense the collectivity of their lives, and some of their fear was passing.†
Chpt 2.17enabling = making possible
Definition:
to make possible
in 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."