One of our customers emailed us asking if we could explain the commonly confused words ‘assure’, ‘ensure’ and ‘insure’. Herein, we explain their different meanings and give example sentences of how to use them. We hope this will help you in your academic writing.
Etymology
Firstly, ‘assure’, ‘ensure’ and ‘insure’ are all verbs that come from the Latin word ‘securus‘, meaning ‘safe’ or ‘secure’. Other English words that come from securus include ‘sure’ and ‘security’.
These verbs all have the general meaning ‘make sure’. Because of this, some people think that they are interchangeable. However, their correct usage depends on the context in which they appear.
Assure (Dispel Doubts or Make Certain)
One can ‘assure’ a person or a group of people to remove doubt or anxiety:
Trevor assured Bryony that she’d made the right decision.
This use is very similar to ‘reassure’. It can also be used when something is definitely going to happen:
After scoring the third goal, victory was assured.
Ensure (Guarantee)
To ‘ensure’ something is to guarantee it or take precautions. For example:
Stephanie bought extra food to ensure there’d be enough.
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To help you remember this, keep in mind that ‘guarantee’ has a double ‘e’ at the end, and to ‘ensure’ something is to guarantee it.
Insure (Take Precautions Against Something)
The most common use of ‘insure’ is to take out a policy to limit financial liability, most commonly in the form of an insurance policy:
Tim insured his car against fire, theft and accidental damage.
Remembering that ‘insure’ is to do with finance is easy because both ‘insure’ and ‘income’ begin with ‘in-‘, and our ‘income’ is part of our finances.
However, ‘insure’ can also be used more generally to refer to a precaution against something bad happening:
The policy was suggested to insure against further unrest.
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