Definition of "enable" in English

verb

1. To make somebody able (to do, or to be, something); to give sufficient ability or power to do or to be; to give strength or ability to.

2. To affirm; to make firm and strong.

3. To qualify or approve for some role or position; to render sanction or authorization to; to confirm suitability for.

4. To yield the opportunity or provide the possibility for something; to provide with means, opportunities, and the like.

   • April 16, 2018, Norimitsu Onishi and Selam Gebrekidan writing in The New York Times, ‘They Eat Money’: How Mandela’s Political Heirs Grow Rich Off Corruption

5. To imply or tacitly confer excuse for an action or a behavior.

   • His parents enabled him to go on buying drugs.

6. (electronics) To put a circuit element into action by supplying a suitable input pulse.

7. (chiefly electronics, computing) To activate, to make operational (especially of a function of an electronic or mechanical device).