IMPOSING

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does imposing mean? 

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

1. impressive in appearance

2. used of a person's appearance or behavior; befitting an eminent person

  Familiarity information: IMPOSING used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• IMPOSING (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Impressive in appearance

Synonyms:

baronial; imposing; noble; stately

Context example:

stately columns

Similar:

impressive (making a strong or vivid impression)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Used of a person's appearance or behavior; befitting an eminent person

Synonyms:

distinguished; grand; imposing; magisterial

Context example:

she reigned in magisterial beauty

Similar:

dignified (having or expressing dignity; especially formality or stateliness in bearing or appearance)

 Context examples 

His clothes were shabby, but he had an imposing shirt-collar on.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

It was his size which took one's breath away—his size and his imposing presence.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

This faith gives a solemnity to his reveries that render them to me almost as imposing and interesting as truth.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

He drew himself up to his most imposing stature, gripping the knife and staring hard at the bear.

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

He was a man of about fifty, tall, portly, and imposing, with a massive, strongly marked face and a commanding figure.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The world is blinded by his fortune and consequence, or frightened by his high and imposing manners, and sees him only as he chooses to be seen.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

The collective appearance of the gentlemen, like that of the ladies, is very imposing: they are all costumed in black; most of them are tall, some young.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

The imposing effect of this last argument was equal to his wishes.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

Whereas at one time, these were detailed and almost recipe-like, more recent entries may be limited to specifying the formula and imposing a standard limit for the active agent.

(Pharmaceutical Formulation, NCI Thesaurus)

I think that we are now sufficiently imposing to strike terror into a guilty breast.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)