staring

[stair-ing]

adjective

1. gazing fixedly and intently, especially with the eyes wide open.

   Standing in front of Jane’s staring face, Ravi lifted the conch shell above his head and smashed it into a hundred pieces on the floor.

2. boldly, inescapably, or obnoxiously conspicuous; glaring.

   Whenever I dwell on my own shortcomings, they begin to seem mild and harmless, not at all like the staring defects in other people's characters.

adverb

1. Chiefly British.,  glaringly or conspicuously; thoroughly (often preceded bystark ).

   This "borrow and spend" policy is stark staring bonkers.

Other Word Forms

• staringly adverb

Word History and Origins

Origin of staring¹

star(e) ( def. ) + -ing ² ( def. )

Example Sentences

Instead, when they lost, Bradley’s decision became emblematic of why the Americans were staring at a historic deficit going into the final day.

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However, once Bruno Guimaraes opened the scoring with a curling effort, leaving Postecoglou staring into the distance as he shook his head on the touchline, Forest never looked like getting back into this game.

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Maybe that should have been staring the party in the face: her original pitch for the job was "Renewal 2030" - a date past the next general election.

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"Every time I walked in the street, I was very terrified and I looked around me, staring at people, because I didn't know who was Hamas", he said.

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“So it’s not like sitting there staring at a map. It’s really engaging with something that children would naturally tend to gravitate toward at this age.”

Read more on Los Angeles Times