striving

/ˈstɹaɪvɪŋ/

striving is the present participle and gerund of strive.

Meaning of strive

Verb

strive (third-person singular simple present strives, present participle striving, simple past strove or strived, past participle striven or strived or (nonstandard, colloquial) strove)

To try to achieve a result; to make strenuous effort; to try earnestly and persistently.
- He strove to excel.
Synonyms:

seek, pursue, reach for
To struggle in opposition; to be in contention or dispute; to contend; to contest.
- to strive against fate
To vie; to compete as a rival.
- [Not] that sweet grove
  Of Daphne, by Orontes and the inspired
  Castalian spring, might with this paradise
  Of Eden strive.1667, John Milton, “Book IV”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished...

Noun

striving (countable and uncountable, plural strivings)

Effort; the act of one who strives.
- Repudiating the excessive sexualism of Freud and insisting upon the importance of the food-seeking impulse, especially in childhood, he regards all the primary impulses as differentiations of one fundamental energy, the life force which sustains all our strivings, both conscious and unconscious […]1918, Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine
- Sexual virility, coital potency rides high and arrogant over the commercial, artistic, social strivings of contemporary society[.]1961, Harry E. Wedeck, Dictionary of Aphrodisiacs, New York: The Citadel Press, page iii

Forms of striving

plural	strivings

Words that rhyme with striving

Questions about striving

What does striving mean?: Striving means effort; the act of one who strives.
What is striving the present participle and gerund of?: Striving is the present participle and gerund of strive.
What part of speech is striving?: Striving is a noun.
How do you pronounce striving?: Striving is pronounced /ˈstɹaɪvɪŋ/.
What is the plural of striving?: The plural of striving is strivings.

Words near striving in the dictionary

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

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