FORGIVING

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does forgiving mean? 

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

1. inclined or able to forgive and show mercy

2. providing absolution

  Familiarity information: FORGIVING used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• FORGIVING (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Inclined or able to forgive and show mercy

Context example:

a forgiving embrace to the naughty child

Similar:

kind; tolerant (tolerant and forgiving under provocation)

unvindictive (not vindictive)

Antonym:

unforgiving (unwilling or unable to forgive or show mercy)

Derivation:

forgivingness (tendency to be kind and forgiving)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Providing absolution

Synonyms:

absolvitory; exonerative; forgiving

Similar:

exculpatory (clearing of guilt or blame)

Derivation:

forgivingness (tendency to be kind and forgiving)

 Context examples 

As soon as he had gone, she wished she had been more forgiving, and when Meg and her mother went upstairs, she felt lonely and longed for Teddy.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

After we had both laughed heartily, Traddles wound up by looking with a smile at the fire, and saying, in his forgiving way, “Old Creakle!”

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

He is not very forgiving: he broke with his family, and now for many years he has led an unsettled kind of life.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Are none to be gentle and kind, none to be piteous and forgiving?

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He sailed with skill, stopping way on the boat without exciting the notice of the wranglers, and mentally forgiving his hardest voyages in that they had made this marvellous night possible, giving him mastery over sea and boat and wind so that he could sail with her beside him, her dear weight against him on his shoulder.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Elizabeth was pleased to find that he had not betrayed the interference of his friend; for, though Jane had the most generous and forgiving heart in the world, she knew it was a circumstance which must prejudice her against him.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

When Mr. Weston joined the party, however, and when the baby was fetched, there was no longer a want of subject or animation—or of courage and opportunity for Frank Churchill to draw near her and say, I have to thank you, Miss Woodhouse, for a very kind forgiving message in one of Mrs. Weston's letters.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

When I think of Mortimer Tregennis, with the foxy face and the small shrewd, beady eyes behind the spectacles, he is not a man whom I should judge to be of a particularly forgiving disposition.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

“But I forgive you, Mr. Copperfield,” said Uriah, making his forgiving nature the subject of a most impious and awful parallel, which I shall not record.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

But her faith in the good spot which exists in the heart of the naughtiest, sauciest, most tantalizing little ragamuffin gave her patience, skill, and in time success, for no mortal boy could hold out long with Father Bhaer shining on him as benevolently as the sun, and Mother Bhaer forgiving him seventy times seven.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)