demanding
/dɪˈmɑːndɪŋ/US/dəˈmændɪŋ/
demanding adjective: requiring much endurance, strength, or patience. Also the present participle and gerund of demand.
Adjective
demanding (comparative more demanding, superlative most demanding)
- Requiring much endurance, strength, or patience.
- This bike is built to withstand even the most demanding terrain.
- Synonyms:
- challenging, exigent, taxing, fussy
- Making great demands in terms of quality, quantity, accuracy or other criteria; difficult to satisfy.
- Near-synonyms: see Thesaurus:fastidious
- Our wines will satisfy even the most demanding of connoisseurs.
- Synonyms:
- exacting, open-mouthed, authoritarian, autocratic, bossy, coercive, commanding, controlling, despotic, dictatorial
Noun
demanding (plural demandings)
- The act of making a demand.
- She had had enough whimperings and demandings this morning to last her a week, and her face hardened as a tear rolled down Sarah's cheek.2012, Janet Haslam, Rachel's Daughter
Also used as
demanding is also the present participle and gerund of demand.
Examples of demanding in a sentence
- Digging ditches has long been considered one of the most demanding forms of manual labor.
- The hard subject was more cognitively demanding than the preceding material.
- The demanding interview panel took him well out of his comfort zone.
Synonyms of demanding
30 more synonymsFewer synonyms
- commanding
- controlling
- despotic
- dictatorial
- dominant
- domineering
- forceful
- harsh
- heavy-handed
- iron-fisted
- iron-handed
- monocratic
- obtrusive
- brassy
- oppressive
- overbearing
- strict
- tyrannical
- anal-retentive
- choosy
- conscientious
- dainty
- fastidious
- finical
- finicking
- finickity
- finicky
- finikin
- hypercritical
- lily-handed
Antonyms
Forms of demanding
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| comparative | more demanding |
| superlative | most demanding |
| Noun | |
| plural | demandings |
Origin of demanding
From demand + -ing.
Words formed from demanding
Questions about demanding
- What does demanding mean?
- Demanding means requiring much endurance, strength, or patience.
- What part of speech is demanding?
- Demanding can be an adjective or a noun.
- How do you pronounce demanding?
- Demanding is pronounced /dɪˈmɑːndɪŋ/ (UK).
Words near demanding in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: demanding (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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-demanding.wav.
Cite this entry: “demanding.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/demanding. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.