encouraging
/ɛŋˈkʌrɪdʒɪŋ/ /ɪŋˈkʌrɪdʒɪŋ
/adjective
1Giving someone support or confidence; supportive: she gave me an encouraging smile...
- Georgiana gave him what she desperately hoped was an encouraging smile.
- Visit our new email form to send me an encouraging epistle.
- Well, Happy Veteran's Day to all of your readers and thanks to them for all of the encouraging e-mails!
1.1Positive and giving hope for future success; promising: the results are very encouraging...
- An extension to three diverse small biomolecules also gave encouraging results.
- However, for a mere six-week exposure, even modest success is encouraging.
- Still, he says, "seeing the effects in patients with depression was encouraging."
Derivatives
encouragingly
/ /ɛnˈkʌrɪdʒɪŋli / adverb [as sentence adverb]: encouragingly, there is more research being done today [as submodifier]: the level of activity continues to be encouragingly high...
- The entire room continued to stare stonily at me while Wanda nodded encouragingly.
- Margaret was smiling encouragingly, so she continued.
- A reasonable number of anglers fished the lake and, encouragingly, reported that good numbers of fish were observed.