OBLIGING

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does obliging mean? 

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

1. showing a cheerful willingness to do favors for others

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

 Dictionary entry details 

• OBLIGING (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Showing a cheerful willingness to do favors for others

Synonyms:

complaisant; obliging

Context example:

the obliging waiter was in no hurry for us to leave

Similar:

accommodating; accommodative (helpful in bringing about a harmonious adaptation)

Derivation:

obligingness (a disposition or tendency to yield to the will of others)

 Context examples 

“Ma'am,” returned Mr. Micawber, with a bow, “you are very obliging: and what are you doing, Copperfield? Still in the wine trade?”

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

So very obliging of Mr. Frank Churchill!

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

Captain Harville, though not equalling Captain Wentworth in manners, was a perfect gentleman, unaffected, warm, and obliging.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

Fanny would have had quite as good a walk there, I assure you, with the advantage of being of some use, and obliging her aunt: it is all her fault.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

The house, furniture, neighbourhood, and roads, were all to her taste, and Lady Catherine's behaviour was most friendly and obliging.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

“What is the name of this obliging youth?” asked Sherlock Holmes.

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

He was very obliging, and offered to do anything in his power.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

When he looked about him for another and a less intractable damsel to immortalize in melody, memory produced one with the most obliging readiness.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Guest had often been on business to the doctor’s; he knew Poole; he could scarce have failed to hear of Mr. Hyde’s familiarity about the house; he might draw conclusions: was it not as well, then, that he should see a letter which put that mystery to right? and above all since Guest, being a great student and critic of handwriting, would consider the step natural and obliging?

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

Henry was not able to obey his father's injunction of remaining wholly at Northanger in attendance on the ladies, during his absence in London, the engagements of his curate at Woodston obliging him to leave them on Saturday for a couple of nights.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)