verb · academic
incentivize
/ɪnˈsɛntɪvaɪz/in·CEN·tiv·ize
to encourage people to do something, especially by offering financial rewards or other benefits
Examples
“The city incentivized landlords to improve energy efficiency in older buildings.”
“Tax breaks are used to incentivize investment in green technologies.”
“It is difficult to incentivize behaviour change without clear benefits.”
Band 8 sentence
“To reduce congestion, the council incentivized commuters to switch to public transport through discounted season tickets.”
Collocations
- incentivize investment / incentivize behaviour / incentivize landlords
Word family
Common mistakes
give incentive people to recycle→incentivize people to recycle
encourage people with incentive→incentivize people with incentives
Say it for a higher band
5encourage→6motivate→7+incentivize
Synonyms
encourage
motivate
Easily confused
encourage
“The teacher encouraged the students to read more.”
motivate
“Good leadership can motivate employees.”
Related words
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In -ize
Learn it with its set