caressing
Americanadjective
-
gently touching, patting, or stroking a person or thing to show affection.
She stroked my face—temple, cheek, chin, and then up the other side in a caressing, sweeping gesture.
-
touching or seeming to touch a person or thing lightly and in a way that calms or soothes.
Over and over again, I repeated the figures until they became a caressing swash of sound inside my head and hummed me finally to sleep.
Other Word Forms
- caressingly adverb
- uncaressing adjective
- uncaressingly adverb
Etymology
Origin of caressing
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
I even ponied up for a pay-per-view a few years back to see Mayweather spend eight rounds gently caressing Jake’s overmatched older brother, Logan.
From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 26, 2026
Jareth is an illusionist as beguiling and seductive as he is sinister, caressing bubbles and gravity-defiant glass spheres with liquid grace.
From Salon • Jan. 24, 2026
With the cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom, he shows them off beautifully, caressing them in light so that they look lit from within.
From New York Times • Apr. 25, 2024
The video shows Fito caressing a fighting cockerel and freely chatting to fellow inmates.
From BBC • Jan. 8, 2024
The neighbors showed one another with their thumbs how big the pearl was, and they made little caressing gestures to show how lovely it was.
From "The Pearl" by John Steinbeck
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
