Word.ws English Dictionary

answering to

answering to is the present participle and gerund of answer to.

Meaning of answer to

Verb

answer to (third-person singular simple present answers to, present participle answering to, simple past and past participle answered to)

  1. To be accountable or responsible to; to account to; to report to.
    • I'm above you in the hierarchy, Jim, so you should be answering to me.
  2. To justify oneself to (someone). (usually with have to)
    • You're going to have to answer to all of these charges to my satisfaction.
  3. To respond to (a name); to treat as one's own name.
    • She's answered to Katie her entire life.

Questions about answering to

What is answering to the present participle and gerund of?
Answering to is the present participle and gerund of answer to.

Words near answering to in the dictionary

  1. answering services
  2. answering someone's prayers
  3. answering the call
  4. answering the call of nature
  5. answering the helm
  6. answering to
  7. answering up
  8. answeringly
  9. answerings
  10. answerless
  11. answerlessly

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: answering to (page history and authors); answer to (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “answering to.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/answering_to. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.