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incur

verb

Simple meaning

Make oneself subject to.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

ihnkur

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US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ɪnˈkɝ

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.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

verb

  1. Make oneself subject to; bring upon oneself; become liable to

  2. chiefly lawaccounting

    To render (somebody, or oneself) liable or subject to.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
C1 · Advanced
Frequency
Moderately Common
Typical Use
Neutral / general English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: Make oneself subject to; bring upon oneself; become liable to

Used this way, incur 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 incur

  • “People who smoke incur a great danger to their health.”verb

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

incur costsincur expenditureincur lossesincur debtsthereby incur

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Inflected forms

Grammatical variations of the same word.

  • incurringnounInflected form

    Acquiring or coming into something (usually undesirable).

Word family

Words built from the same root.

  • incurableadjectiveDerived adjective

    Incapable of being cured.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

Sense: make oneself subject to

get

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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.