Word.ws English Dictionary

sobering

sobering adjective: causing more sober thought or concern. Also the present participle and gerund of sober.

Adjective

sobering

  1. Causing more sober thought or concern.
    • It was a sobering thought that I had almost killed myself. That was something I wouldn't soon do on purpose again.
    • For Chelsea coach Andre Villas-Boas, this was his most sobering moment in the Premier League and he looked stunned on the sidelines at the regularity with which Chelsea's defence was exposed.2011 October 29, Phil McNulty, “Chelsea 3 - 5 Arsenal”, in BBC Sport

Also used as

sobering is also the present participle and gerund of sober.

Examples of sobering in a sentence

  • Losing his job was a sobering experience.
  • That, in itself, is a very sobering thought, for all kinds of reasons.
  • It was a sobering but equally an exciting time to have an interview with one of the world’s bestloved actors.

All 10 example sentences with sobering

Words formed from sobering

Phrases with sobering

Questions about sobering

What does sobering mean?
Sobering means causing more sober thought or concern.
What part of speech is sobering?
Sobering is an adjective.

Words near sobering in the dictionary

  1. sobered up
  2. soberer
  3. soberers
  4. soberest
  5. sobereth
  6. sobering
  7. sobering down
  8. sobering up
  9. soberingly
  10. soberise
  11. soberised

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: sobering (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: “sobering.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sobering. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.