Word.ws English Dictionary

countenancing

countenancing is the present participle and gerund of countenance.

Meaning of countenance

Verb

countenance (third-person singular simple present countenances, present participle countenancing, simple past and past participle countenanced)

  1. (transitive) To tolerate, support, sanction, patronise or approve of something.
    • The cruel punishment was countenanced by the government, although it was not officially legal.

See all 5 meanings of countenance

Questions about countenancing

What is countenancing the present participle and gerund of?
Countenancing is the present participle and gerund of countenance.

Words near countenancing in the dictionary

  1. countenanced
  2. countenancer
  3. countenancers
  4. countenances
  5. countenanceth
  6. countenancing
  7. countenaunce
  8. countenaunces
  9. counter
  10. counter admiral
  11. counter admirals

Source and license

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