Word.ws English Dictionary

captivating

Syllables: cap·tiv·at·ingUK/ˈkæptɪveɪtɪŋ//ˈkæptɪveɪtɪŋ/

captivating adjective: that captivates; fascinating. Also the present participle and gerund of captivate.

Adjective

captivating (comparative more captivating, superlative most captivating)

  1. That captivates; fascinating.
  2. Very beautiful or attractive.
    • [T]he eye is delighted by a continual succession of small landscapes of captivating loveliness.1819 July 31, Geoffrey Crayon [pseudonym; Washington Irving], “Rural Life in England”, in The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent., number II, New York, N.Y.: […] C[ornelius] S. Van Winkle, […]...

Also used as

captivating is also the present participle and gerund of captivate.

captivating meaning in Hindi, Kannada and Arabic

captivating in Hindi

beautiful
चित्ताकर्षक cittākarṣak

captivating in Kannada

ಸೆರೆಹಿಡಿಯುವಂಥದ್ದು

captivating in Arabic

beautiful
أَخَّاذ ʔaḵḵāḏ

Examples of captivating in a sentence

  • UNE is also very smartly made, polished, captivating, and cohesive, with no perceptible cinematic hamburger helper; there are no wasted words.
  • An apricot palinka made with honey, apricot juice and lime — every bit as captivating as the new food in town.
  • The Vantaanian started the discussion with the captivating phrase that I later learned is known by all Vantaanians.

All 13 example sentences with captivating

Forms of captivating

comparativemore captivating
superlativemost captivating

Origin of captivating

From captivate + -ing.

Words formed from captivating

Questions about captivating

What does captivating mean?
Captivating means that captivates; fascinating.
What is captivating in Hindi?
Captivating in Hindi is चित्ताकर्षक (cittākarṣak). See Captivating meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is captivating?
Captivating is an adjective.
How do you pronounce captivating?
Captivating is pronounced /ˈkæptɪveɪtɪŋ/ (UK).

Words near captivating in the dictionary

  1. captivated
  2. captivatedly
  3. captivates
  4. captivatest
  5. captivateth
  6. captivating
  7. captivatingly
  8. captivatingness
  9. captivation
  10. captivations
  11. captivative

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: captivating (page history and authors); captivating (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-captivating.ogg.

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