Persuade Someone To Do vs. Persuade Someone Into Doing
Cambridge documents both persuade + person + to-infinitive and persuade + person + into + noun/-ing. Both can describe causing someone to act through persuasion, while the into construction often foregrounds being brought into a course of action.
ReviewedEvidence1 sourceSectionEnglish Usage
Quick answer
Both are standard: use “persuade someone to do something” as the general pattern, and “persuade someone into doing something” when the into construction fits the intended emphasis.
Key details
Confusion Familygrammar-and-usage distinction
Rule Familypreposition and verb-complement pattern
TermsPersuade Someone To Do, Persuade Someone Into Doing
Further guidance
Boundary
Do not treat the two as mechanically interchangeable in every sentence: persuade also supports that-clauses and “persuade someone of something,” which express belief rather than the same action complement.
Construction
Persuade supports person + to-infinitive and person + into + -ing. The second construction packages the resulting action after the preposition into.
Decision
Both are standard: use “persuade someone to do something” as the general pattern, and “persuade someone into doing something” when the into construction fits the intended emphasis.
Sources and evidence
Sources are shown with the role they play in this guide. Historical or style-sensitive claims are kept within the evidence boundary described above.
Cambridge records “accuse someone of something” and specifically “accuse someone of doing something.” That supports of + -ing when the action is the alleged wrongdoing.
Cambridge records accustomed to something and gives -ing examples such as being accustomed to working or being treated in a particular way. Do not interpret the “to” after accustomed as an infinitive marker in this construction.
Cambridge distinguishes adapt to a situation or activity from transitive patterns such as adapting plans to fit new circumstances. The surface sequence “adapt … to + verb” therefore needs its grammatical structure identified before choosing an -ing form or infinitive.
Cambridge distinguishes “apologize to someone” from “apologize for something/doing something.” You can combine the two roles, as in “apologize to someone for doing something”; “to” marks the recipient while “for” marks the reason.
Cambridge distinguishes intransitive “approve of” for a favorable opinion from transitive “approve something” for official acceptance or authorization. The official-authorization sense uses transitive “approve” with an object; do not collapse that separate sense into the “approve of doing” judgment pattern.
Oxford documents the person-action pattern as be banned + from + -ing and separately documents direct-object uses of ban. The cited evidence does not support person + to-infinitive as the equivalent prohibition construction.
