Word.ws English Dictionary

arousing

/əˈɹaʊzɪŋ/

arousing is the present participle and gerund of arouse.

Meaning of arouse

Verb

arouse (third-person singular simple present arouses, present participle arousing, simple past and past participle aroused)

  1. (transitive) To stimulate or induce (feelings); pique.
    • to arouse compassion, jealousy, or anger
  2. (transitive) To sexually stimulate.
    • […] grinding against their partners like burlesque performers, which even in parody Terry found erotic—reminding him of the Persian belly dancer he'd seen at the college, whose sensual dancing aroused him despite her claim of high art.2006, Donald J. Young, Dancing by the Shore, page 12
    1. (euphemistic, transitive) To cause an erection of the penis or other physical signs of sexual arousal, such as fluid secretion.
      • I can't wear wool underwear: it tends to arouse me at inappropriate times.
  3. (transitive) To wake from sleep or stupor; to rouse.
    • He kenned not whether it was devil or mortal, but flung himself on the roadside and lay like a corp for an hour or more, till the rain aroused him.1902, John Buchan, The Outgoing of the Tide

Adjective

arousing (comparative more arousing, superlative most arousing)

  1. Causing arousal.
    • I am having very arousing thoughts about my gym trainer when he's in his tight shorts.

Noun

arousing (plural arousings)

  1. (rare) An act or occurrence in which something is aroused
    • There is a mob in every drama--poor mob that always loses, of untimely arousings, mere bewildered strength in the wiles of strategy.1912, Will Levington Comfort, Fate Knocks at the Door
    • These excursions of the soul into the realm of matter, thus made by and through the offices of clairvoyants and seers, the repeated arousings of the ego from its contented sleep are finally highly educational, and result in resurrecting the forces of the enfranchised being, and setting them in...1913, Anna Bishop Scofield, Insights and Heresies Pertaining to the Evolution of the Soul, 2nd edition

Forms of arousing

Adjective
comparativemore arousing
superlativemost arousing
Noun
pluralarousings

Words formed from arousing

Words that rhyme with arousing

Questions about arousing

What does arousing mean?
Arousing means causing arousal.
What is arousing the present participle and gerund of?
Arousing is the present participle and gerund of arouse.
What part of speech is arousing?
Arousing can be an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce arousing?
Arousing is pronounced /əˈɹaʊzɪŋ/.

Words near arousing in the dictionary

  1. arouser
  2. arousers
  3. arouses
  4. arousest
  5. arouseth
  6. arousing
  7. arousingly
  8. arousingness
  9. arousings
  10. arousometer
  11. arousometers

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: arousing (page history and authors); arouse (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: “arousing.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/arousing. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.