exacting

Syllables: ex·act·ing/ɪɡˈzæktɪŋ/

exacting adjective: making great demands; difficult to satisfy. Also the present participle and gerund of exact.

Adjective

exacting (comparative more exacting, superlative most exacting)

Making great demands; difficult to satisfy.
- His exacting taste required no small degree of outward perfection.1874, Edward Payson Roe, chapter 4, in Opening a Chestnut Burr
- [H]e burst into apologies which would have satisfied a more exacting man than I am.1895, Arthur Conan Doyle, chapter 7, in The Stark Munro Letters
Synonyms:

demanding
Of an action, task, etc., requiring precise accuracy, great care, effort, or attention.
- Wolf's work, which, though not very exacting, had to be done single-handed, kept him to his post.1897, Bram Stoker, chapter 3, in The Man
- Every photographer of experience has his own theories and methods of working, but for the last 14 years I have used a Leica exclusively, and have found it best adapted to the somewhat exacting demands of railway photography, which is by no means an easy branch of the art.1952 February, H. C. Casserley, “Permanent Wayfarings”, in Railway Magazine, page 78
Synonyms:

demanding, niggly, pernickety
Of a person or organization, characterized by exaction.
- "He is a hard, exacting, money-loving man," was my remark.1850, T. S. Arthur, chapter 2, in All's For the Best
Synonyms:

acquisitive, extortionate, grasping, money-grubbing, rapacious

exacting is also the present participle and gerund of exact.

[Canadian Prime Minister] Mr. [Mark] Carney was the exacting governor of the Bank of Canada during the 2008 financial crisis, and the levelheaded governor of the Bank of England during Brexit.2025 April 2, Sara Miller Llana, “Who is Mark Carney? Maybe just who Canada wants to face off against Trump.”, in The Christian Science...
Even if a GDF receives its first deposit in the 2040s, the waste has to be delivered and put away with such exacting caution that it can be filled and closed only by the middle of the 22nd century.December 15 2022, Samanth Subramanian, “Dismantling Sellafield: the epic task of shutting down a nuclear site”, in The Guardian:

comparative	more exacting
superlative	most exacting

From exact + -ing.

What does exacting mean?: Exacting means making great demands; difficult to satisfy.
How do you use exacting in a sentence?: [Canadian Prime Minister] Mr. [Mark] Carney was the exacting governor of the Bank of Canada during the 2008 financial crisis, and the levelheaded governor of the Bank of England during Brexit.
What part of speech is exacting?: Exacting is an adjective.
How do you pronounce exacting?: Exacting is pronounced /ɪɡˈzæktɪŋ/.

Adapted from Wiktionary: exacting (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: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-exacting.wav.

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