WordWeb Online

1. Giving courage or confidence or hope
   "encouraging advances in medical research"
    
2. Furnishing support and encouragement
   "the anxious child needs encouraging and accepting treatment from the teacher"
   - supporting

1. Contribute to the progress or growth of
   "I am encouraging the use of computers in the classroom"
   - promote, advance, boost, further
    
2. Inspire with confidence; give hope or courage to
    
3. Spur on
   "His financial success encouraged him to look for a wife"
    
4. Push for something
   - recommend, urge, advocate

See also: encouragement, encouragingly, exhortative, exhortatory, heartening, helpful, hopeful, hortative, hortatory, inspiriting, promotive, rallying, reassuring, supportive

Type of: advise, animate, back up, cause, enliven, exalt, get, have, induce, inspire, invigorate, make, propose, stimulate, suggest, support

Antonym: discourage, discouraging