ENCOURAGING

Pronunciation (US):

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IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does encouraging mean? 

• ENCOURAGING (adjective)
  The adjective ENCOURAGING has 2 senses:

1. giving courage or confidence or hope

2. furnishing support and encouragement

  Familiarity information: ENCOURAGING used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• ENCOURAGING (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Giving courage or confidence or hope

Context example:

encouraging advances in medical research

Similar:

exhortative; exhortatory; hortative; hortatory (giving strong encouragement)

heartening; inspiriting (cheerfully encouraging)

promotive (tending to further or encourage)

rallying (rousing or recalling to unity and renewed effort)

Also:

reassuring (restoring confidence and relieving anxiety)

helpful (providing assistance or serving a useful function)

hopeful (having or manifesting hope)

Antonym:

discouraging (depriving of confidence or hope or enthusiasm and hence often deterring action)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Furnishing support and encouragement

Synonyms:

encouraging; supporting

Context example:

the anxious child needs supporting and accepting treatment from the teacher

Similar:

supportive (furnishing support or assistance)

 Context examples 

What could be more encouraging to a man who had her love in view?

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

Particular emphasis is placed on encouraging interdisciplinary, population-based research focusing on the etiologic mechanisms underlying the interaction of genetic and epidemiologic risk factors for cancer susceptibility.

(Interdisciplinary Studies in the Genetic Epidemiology of Cancer, NCI Thesaurus)

Two years after the initiation of the study, the researchers observed encouraging preliminary results.

(Greener palm oil possible without sacrificing profit, SciDev.Net)

Close behind the pack rode a fourrier and a yeoman-pricker, whooping on the laggards and encouraging the leaders, in the shrill half-French jargon which was the language of venery and woodcraft.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

It is encouraging people to marry if you make so much of them.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

I only thought Jo was encouraging you in a feeling which you'd be sorry for by-and-by.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

The coming new moon solar eclipse on December 25/26 is one of the sweetest and more encouraging eclipses I have seen in years.

(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)

He made it his business to go to Lyme, and his account was still encouraging.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

But the misfortune of speaking with bitterness is a most natural consequence of the prejudices I had been encouraging.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

His answer was not very encouraging.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)