Word.ws English Dictionary

inquiring

Syllables: in·quir·ingUK/ɪnˈkwaɪəɹɪŋ//ɪnˈkwaɪɹɪŋ/

inquiring is the present participle and gerund of inquire.

Meaning of inquire

Verb

inquire (third-person singular simple present inquires, present participle inquiring, simple past and past participle inquired)

  1. (Australia, Canada, US, ambitransitive, intransitive) To ask (about something).
    • May I inquire to whom I have the honor of speaking?
  2. (ambitransitive, intransitive) To make an inquiry or an investigation.
    • Police are already inquiring into the incident.
  3. (ambitransitive, obsolete, transitive) To call; to name.
    • Canute had his portion from the rest, The which he cald Canutium, for his hyre, Now Cantium, which Kent we commenly inquire.1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto X”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 12

Noun

inquiring (plural inquirings)

  1. inquiry
    • What need you trouble with vain inquirings / The surly gods or your own ignorant spirit?1923, The London Mercury, volume 8, page 468
    • […] these are the results of Herodotus' factual inquirings, the accurate information, the right account, which he acquired about some matters of importance to himself and to his audience and about which conflicting accounts have been given.2003, Gerald A. Press, Development of the Idea of History in Antiquity, page 31

Adjective

inquiring (comparative more inquiring, superlative most inquiring)

  1. inquisitive
    • When pressed for an explanation, he was inclined to use the word "Symbolic" in a manner extremely confusing to the inquiring lay mind.1913, Norman Lindsay, A Curate in Bohemia, Sydney: N.S.W. Bookstall Co., published 1932, page 150

Antonyms of inquiring

Forms of inquiring

Noun
pluralinquirings
Adjective
comparativemore inquiring
superlativemost inquiring

Phrases with inquiring

Words that rhyme with inquiring

16 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about inquiring

What does inquiring mean?
Inquiring means inquiry.
What is inquiring the present participle and gerund of?
Inquiring is the present participle and gerund of inquire.
What part of speech is inquiring?
Inquiring can be a noun or an adjective.
How do you pronounce inquiring?
Inquiring is pronounced /ɪnˈkwaɪɹɪŋ/ (US).
What is the plural of inquiring?
The plural of inquiring is inquirings.

Words near inquiring in the dictionary

  1. inquirers
  2. inquires
  3. inquires after
  4. inquires of
  5. inquiries
  6. inquiring
  7. inquiring after
  8. inquiring of
  9. inquiringly
  10. inquirings
  11. inquirist

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: inquiring (page history and authors); inquire (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-inquiring.ogg.

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