Meaning & use
feeling empowered
Last updated
Meanings
phrasefixed phrase
Having a strong sense of your own power and control, so you feel able to act or decide.
Grammar: Used after linking verbs like feel, be or seem: 'They felt empowered after the vote.'
Patterns
- feel empowered to do something
- be empowered by something
- feel empowered about something
After the workshop, she said she was feeling empowered and ready to lead the team.
Many students leave the course feeling empowered to speak up in meetings.
He felt empowered by the support of his colleagues.
phrasefixed phraseformal
Given official authority or the means to do something, and therefore confident about doing it.
Grammar: Often followed by 'to' plus a verb: 'staff are empowered to make decisions.'
Patterns
- be empowered to do something
- feel empowered to act
Local managers are feeling empowered to solve problems without waiting for head office.
Once the new rules were introduced, teachers felt empowered to try different methods.
Common combinations
- feel truly empowered
- She felt truly empowered after finishing the marathon.
- feeling empowered to speak
- The group left the meeting feeling empowered to speak about their concerns.
- empowered by knowledge
- Patients who read about their condition feel empowered by knowledge.
- a feeling of empowerment
- There was a real feeling of empowerment in the room.
Synonyms and how they differ
- confident
- Confident means you trust your own ability, but it does not carry the idea of having power or authority that empowered does.
- emboldened
- Emboldened means made braver by something, often after a success; it is more literary and less about control than empowered.
Opposites
Word family
- empower verb
- To give someone the power or authority to do something.
- empowerment noun
- The process of gaining power or confidence.
Commonly confused: feeling empowered or empowered?
feeling empowered vs empowered
The single word 'empowered' is an adjective or past participle; 'feeling empowered' describes the state you are in right now, so it is more personal and temporary.
Practice
After the training, the new staff said they felt ___ to make their own decisions.
Choose one answer.
'Felt' is a linking verb, so it takes an adjective describing the staff: 'empowered'. 'Empowering' would describe something that gives power, as in 'an empowering speech', and 'empowerment' is a noun, which cannot follow 'felt' here.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “feeling empowered”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.