There is considerable confusion about whether ensure and insure are distinct words, variants of the same word, or some combination of the two. They are in fact different words, but with sufficient overlap in meaning and form as to create uncertainty as to which should be used when. We define ensure as “to make sure, certain, or safe” and one sense of insure, “to make certain especially by taking necessary measures and precautions,” is quite similar. But insure has the additional meaning “to provide or obtain insurance on or for,” which is not shared by ensure. Some usage guides recommend using insure in financial contexts (as in “she insured her book collection for a million dollars”) and ensure in the general sense “to make certain” (as in “she ensured that the book collection was packed well”).
ensure, insure, and assure are interchangeable in many contexts where they indicate the making certain or inevitable of an outcome, but ensure may imply a virtual guarantee
the government has ensured the safety of the refugees
, while insure sometimes stresses the taking of necessary measures beforehand
careful planning should insure the success of the party
, and assure distinctively implies the removal of doubt and suspense from a person's mind.
I assure you that no harm will be done
secure implies action taken to guard against attack or loss.
sent reinforcements to secure their position
Examples of ensure in a Sentence
A combination of … personal courage, dashing leadership from the front, willingness to share the toughest rigours suffered by the ordinary soldiers, and a liberal dose of sheer good fortune ensured his stature as a great general.—Paul Cartledge, History Today, July 2004Indeed, even though she's been off the mainstream radar for more than a decade, her passionate love for and commitment to rock & roll have ensured that she's managed to make a steady living.—Tom Sinclair, Entertainment Weekly, 24 Nov. 2000At 20, [Kobe] Bryant is already living the modern American dream, a $70 million man on the NBA's glamour team in the nation's starriest city. His acrobatic moves make him the envy of teenage boys and his good looks and megawatt smile a heartthrob for teenage girls, ensuring his status as one of the NBA's premier pitchmen …—Allison Samuels et al., Newsweek, 31 May 1999
They took steps to ensure the safety of the passengers.
regulations that ensure the wholesomeness of our food
Recent Examples on the WebDesign changes ensured the car couldn’t repeat its strong performance the next season, before F1 enacted rules that limited the number of wheels on a car to four.—Bryan Hood, Robb Report, 11 Mar. 2024 They’re used in road signs and bicycle reflectors, for instance, to ensure headlights reflect to drivers’ eyes.—Rachel Ramirez, CNN, 11 Mar. 2024 This bonus bounty is mirrored for the online poker section, ensuring equal excitement across both realms.—Sponsored Content, The Mercury News, 11 Mar. 2024 The watchdog said the Commission had failed to implement safeguards to ensure that people’s personal data is only being sent to countries whose data-protection rules are equivalent to the EU’s.—David Meyer, Fortune, 11 Mar. 2024 Working in the largest remaining workshop of its kind in America, the four help oversee the maintenance of some 80,000 instruments, ensuring that the city’s schoolchildren have playable instruments in their hands every day.—Josh Rottenberg, Los Angeles Times, 11 Mar. 2024 That's reassuring news for the flying public as answers to what happened could ensure new safety systems to prevent this kind of tragedy from happening again.—Greg Palkot, Fox News, 9 Mar. 2024 Seeking bright mornings and dark evenings helps ensure your daily rhythms of alertness, metabolism, and strength, among other aspects of your physiology, peak at the right times.—TIME, 9 Mar. 2024 Bringing their website to life was no easy feat, but Shopify (which powers D’Amelio Footwear’s e-commerce platform) ensured that things ran smoothly.—Michelle Lee, Peoplemag, 9 Mar. 2024
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'ensure.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Word History
Etymology
Middle English, from Anglo-French ensurer, alteration of assurer — more at assure
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