What's The Opposite Of Inspire?

When I was drafting this piece on my sources of inspiration the other day I was stuck on a word for the opposite of inspire.

I wondered aloud on Twitter and got the most fascinating set of responses.  I'm not going to quote everyone as I didn't make it clear this was for a post, but here are the answers I got:

• Bore
• School
• A head cold
• Meetings!
• Disillusion
• Expire!
• Extinguish*

* which of course fits with the dragon theme

I realised as these answers came tumbling in that we can learn as much from our idea of the opposite of something as we do the concept itself. 

Each of these opposite words illuminated my understanding of inspiration, and helped me see what it might mean to you too.

So let's see how much further we can take it.  What would your answer be?

What's the opposite of inspire?

Joanna Young, The Confident Writing Coach
Because our words count

Comments

[--Deb]

Disillusion? Dissuade? Stifle? Dampen?

[Brad K.]

I think of inspire as a person, situation, or object that affects a person's thoughts by increasing creative thoughts and energy. So the opposite would be to reduce creative thought - either to reduce thinking or distract thought.

Distract. A simple distraction, put to sleep, fear, etc. - the opposite of inspire.

[Karen Swim]

Hi Joanna! As I read your list the first thought that came to mind was "discourage." A word, environment or attitude can hinder creative thought by discouraging it to flourish. I am learning to give voice to the "uninspired" so that I can push it out of the way and get on with it. This was a great post!

Thank you Joanna!

Karen

[Joanna Young]

--Deb, yes, they'd all be on my list. Dampen was what first popped into my mind, like someone putting out my fire. Stifle's good too - makes me think of snuffing out a candle (maybe I'm stuck on my fire image...)

Brad, that's very interesting, especially when you think how distracted most of us are. I like the association of inspiration with energy too. I'm determined to get to the bottom of this word this month!

Karen, yes, discourage, and maybe we could take it even further, "dis courage", remove our courage, take away our fire-breathing hearts

You are all inspiring me with these opposites, thank you!

Joanna

[cat]

When I'm inspired I'm motivated, so the opposite would be... demotivated.

There's even a demotivate.com ... sad.

So for the 'd' words, I'd go with dispirit ... dampen ... discourage ... dishearten ... deter ... derail ...

= creativity killer.

How depressing.

So let's end with all things inspired ... illumination ... revelation ... discovery ... exploration ... imagination ... visualization ... Durian.

[Joanna Young]

Cat, thanks for ending with the up words!

Your choice of words makes me feel like I'm swimming through clear water, up towards sunshine glinting on the surface.

Most illuminating :-)

Joanna

[S. Vaidyanathan]

The interesting thing about this debate is that, while it is easy to find and agree on the opposites of adjectives, it is difficult to do the same with verbs. Being action-words, verbs do not yield their opposites easily and automatically. When teaching someone, we might be right in saying that the opposite of ‘encourage’ is ‘discourage’; but then, when we analyse the two words in a real context, we may not after all be entirely right. Consider someone saying: “Well, he didn’t exactly discourage me, but he certainly didn’t encourage me either.” The speaker here, while trying to be precise, sounds non-committal, implying nothing, one way or the other, for or against. What is clear, however, is that the speaker is conveying frustration and confusion. The communication is not so much about the action of the other person as about the speaker’s reaction to an incident.
Likewise, it is reasonable to assume that when someone or something does not inspire us, it does not necessarily mean that it has dampened or dispirited or discouraged us. For example, after you have read ten pages of a novel, you feel you don’t want to read any further. Here, ‘the novel did not inspire you’ is a good enough way to explain your decision to put it away. You don’t need to find an opposite for ‘inspire’. If you feel the need to express yourself better or more precisely, you may say ‘the opening of the novel left me cold’, or ‘it starts dully and goes on so for ten pages’, or even ‘the opening is so uninspiring’. Whereas the first two expressions are plain, the last implies that the reader expected the opening to be inspiring.
Verbs do inspire in our minds a spectrum of ideas, many of which are inferential and interpretative, don’t they?

[Joanna Young]

Hello S. Vaidyanathan and thanks for leaving such an interesting comment. You have certainly got me thinking this morning.

Thinking about my inspire example, you're right, as a verb it implies action (and I'm also thinking, agent, which is another line of thought altogether - what do we think is the agent doing the inspiring?)

There are times, many times, when 'nothing happens' we're neither inspired nor uninspired, just neutral

But there are also some people, places, activities, words that actively turn us off or leave us cold... even my choice of words there is telling me something about the opposite - that inspire means turning on, or warming me up...

Thanks so much for warming up my thought processes this morning, and giving me a better insight into how words work

Joanna

[Vaidy]

Joanna,

I am happy to have spread some sunshine and warmth into your morning. Thanks to your inspiration, I was drawn into the wonderful exchange. One good thing leads to another... and so on.

Vaidy

P.S. I hastily formally signed earlier as
S. Vaidyanathan

[Joanna Young]

Vaidy, thanks for coming back! Comments that turn into conversations are why I blog... so wonderful to make these connections :-)

Joanna