Word.ws English Dictionary

demoralizing

demoralizing is the present participle and gerund of demoralize.

Meaning of demoralize

Verb

demoralize (third-person singular simple present demoralizes, present participle demoralizing, simple past and past participle demoralized)

  1. (British, English, Oxford, US, transitive) To destroy the morale of; to dishearten.
    Synonyms:
    daunt, deter, discourage
    Antonyms:
    encourage, hearten
  2. (British, English, Oxford, US, dated, transitive) To erode the moral adherence of; to corrupt.
    • [I]f you convert a man brought up in another creed, you inevitably demoralize him.1915 December (date written), [George] Bernard Shaw, “Androcles and the Lion. Preface on the Prospects of Christianity.”, in Androcles and the Lion, Overruled, Pygmalion, London: Constable and...

Adjective

demoralizing (comparative more demoralizing, superlative most demoralizing)

  1. Disheartening.

Forms of demoralizing

comparativemore demoralizing
superlativemost demoralizing
alternative formdemoralising

Words formed from demoralizing

Questions about demoralizing

What does demoralizing mean?
Demoralizing means disheartening.
What is demoralizing the present participle and gerund of?
Demoralizing is the present participle and gerund of demoralize.
What part of speech is demoralizing?
Demoralizing is an adjective.

Words near demoralizing in the dictionary

  1. demoralize
  2. demoralized
  3. demoralizer
  4. demoralizers
  5. demoralizes
  6. demoralizing
  7. demoralizingly
  8. Demorest
  9. Demorests
  10. demorification
  11. demorified

Source and license

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