COMPLAINING

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does complaining mean? 

• COMPLAINING (adjective)
  The adjective COMPLAINING has 1 sense:

1. expressing pain or dissatisfaction of resentment

  Familiarity information: COMPLAINING used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• COMPLAINING (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Expressing pain or dissatisfaction of resentment

Synonyms:

complaining; complaintive

Context example:

a complaining boss

Similar:

fretful; querulous; whiney; whiny (habitually complaining)

protestant (protesting)

Antonym:

uncomplaining (not complaining)

 Context examples 

Dora lies smiling on us, and is beautiful, and utters no hasty or complaining word.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

It is not of particular, but of general evils, which I am now complaining.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

An endless creaking was going on all about me, the woodwork and the fittings groaning and squeaking and complaining in a thousand keys.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

"I know I do—teaching those tiresome children nearly all day, when I'm longing to enjoy myself at home," began Meg, in the complaining tone again.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Her love made no answer; and after slightly bowing to the ladies, began complaining of the weather.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

When the sled was lashed and the complaining dogs harnessed, he returned into the cabin for his mittens.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

Now, Susan, cried Mrs. Price, in a complaining voice, now, how can you be so cross?

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

And even after fatigue came, his heritage of endurance braced him to endless endeavour and enabled him to drive his complaining body onward.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

As soon as he got home, Utterson sat down and wrote to Jekyll, complaining of his exclusion from the house, and asking the cause of this unhappy break with Lanyon; and the next day brought him a long answer, often very pathetically worded, and sometimes darkly mysterious in drift.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

I was complaining of a small fit of the colic, upon which my conductor led me into a room where a great physician resided, who was famous for curing that disease, by contrary operations from the same instrument.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)