promote

From Latin prōmōtus, perfect passive participle of prōmoveō (“move forward, advance”).

• (General American) IPA^(key): /pɹəˈmoʊt/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /pɹəˈməʊt/
• Rhymes: -əʊt

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Hyphenation: pro‧mote

promote (third-person singular simple present promotes, present participle promoting, simple past and past participle promoted)

2. (transitive) To raise (someone) to a more important, responsible, or remunerative job or rank.

   Antonyms: demote, relegate

   He promoted his clerk to office manager.

3. (transitive) To advocate or urge on behalf of (something or someone); to attempt to popularize or sell by means of advertising or publicity.

   Antonyms: denigrate, oppose; see also Thesaurus:defame

   They promoted the abolition of daylight saving time.

   They promoted the new film with giant billboards.

4. (transitive) To encourage, urge or incite.

   Synonyms: motivate, provoke; see also Thesaurus:incite, Thesaurus:nurture

   • 1749, [John Cleland], “(Please specify the letter or volume)”, in Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure [Fanny Hill], London: for G. Fenton  , →OCLC:

     so that finding myself on the point of going, and loath to leave the tender partner of my joys behind me, I employed all the forwarding motions and arts my experience suggested to me, to promote his keeping me company to our journey's end.

   • 2019 May 21, Israel Alves Corrêa Noletto, Sebastião Alves Teixeira Lopes, “Language and ideology: glossopoesis as a secondary narrative framework in Le Guin’s The dispossessed”, in Acta Scientiarum. Language and Culture‎, volume 41, number 2, →DOI:

     It appears that Le Guin is promoting a sort of self-critique on her own ideology. Interestingly, although the story does give such an impression, the problematic characteristics of the Anarresti society are far more severe than economic scarcities or isolation.

5. (sports, usually in passive form) To elevate to a higher league.

   At the end of the season, three teams are promoted to the Premier League.

6. (transitive, chemistry) To increase the activity of (a catalyst) by changing its surface structure.
7. (transitive, chess) To exchange (a pawn) for a queen or other piece when it reaches the eighth rank.

   Having crossed the chessboard, his pawn was promoted to a queen.

8. (intransitive, Singapore) To move on to a subsequent stage of education.

   At the end of Primary 6 students can promote directly to the secondary section of SIS.

• protome, temporo-, topomer

prōmōte

1. vocative masculine singular of prōmōtus