Word.ws English Dictionary

resembling

Syllables: re·sem·bling/ɹɪˈzɛmblɪŋ/

resembling is the present participle and gerund of resemble.

Meaning of resemble

Verb

resemble (third-person singular simple present resembles, present participle resembling, simple past and past participle resembled)

  1. (transitive) To be like or similar to (something); to represent as similar.
    • The twins resemble each other.
    Synonyms:
    recall, favor
  2. (archaic, transitive) To compare; to regard as similar, to liken.
    • And th'other all yclad in garments light, / Discolour'd like to womanish disguise, / He did resemble to his Ladie bright [...].1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto X”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC
  3. (obsolete, transitive) To counterfeit; to imitate.
    • They can so well resemble mans speech.1601, C[aius] Plinius Secundus [i.e., Pliny the Elder], “(please specify |book=I to XXXVII)”, in Philemon Holland, transl., The Historie of the World. Commonly Called, The Naturall Historie of C....
  4. (obsolete, transitive) To cause to imitate or be like; to make similar.
    • And ſince we all haue ſuckt one wholſome aire,
      And with the ſame proportion of Elements,
      Reſolue, I hope we are reſembled,
      Uowing our loues to equall death and life, […]c. 1587–1588 (date written), [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC...

Noun

resembling (uncountable)

  1. The action of the verb to resemble.

Questions about resembling

What does resembling mean?
Resembling means the action of the verb to resemble.
What is resembling the present participle and gerund of?
Resembling is the present participle and gerund of resemble.
What part of speech is resembling?
Resembling is a noun.
How do you pronounce resembling?
Resembling is pronounced /ɹɪˈzɛmblɪŋ/.

Words near resembling in the dictionary

  1. resembler
  2. resemblers
  3. resembles
  4. resemblest
  5. resembleth
  6. resembling
  7. resemblingly
  8. reseminate
  9. reseminated
  10. reseminates
  11. reseminating

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: resembling (page history and authors); resemble (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: en-us-resembling.ogg.

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