convince
verb
Simple meaning
To make someone believe, or feel sure about something.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
kuhnvinsSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
kənˈvɪns
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
verb
To make someone believe, or feel sure about something, especially by using logic, argument or evidence.
acting
To behave believably in a role; to make someone perceive oneself as the character being portrayed.
To persuade.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B2 · Upper Intermediate
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- Neutral / general English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: To make someone believe, or feel sure about something, especially by using logic, argument or evidence.
Used this way, convince is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use convince
- “He had finally convinced several customers of the advantages of his product.”verb
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
Having a strong belief or conviction.
Causing one to believe the truth of something.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.