Embolden

Pronunciation

RP IPA: /É›mËˆbÉ™ÊŠldÉ™n/Rhymes: -É™ÊŠldÉ™n

Origin

The Oxford English Dictionary (2007) states that embolden was formed by the simultaneous prefixing of en- (or in-) and suffixing of -en, which, by definition, constitutes circumfixation.

Full definition of embolden

Verb

(transitive) To render (someone) bolder or more courageous.
(transitive) To encourage, inspire, or motivate.
(transitive, typography) To format text in boldface.

2004: Jason Whittaker, The Cyberspace Handbook, p216The tags
indicate paragraphs breaks, and we have included some basic text formatting:

for emphasis (typically italics), for underline and to embolden text.

Synonyms

(typography) boldface