- present participle of disappoint.
disappointing
Americanadjective
adjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of disappointing
First recorded in 1520–30; disappoint + -ing 2
Explanation
Something that's disappointing isn't what you'd hoped for. A disappointing baseball season usually means that your favorite team lost a lot of games. When the candidate you voted for loses, it's a disappointing election result, and a disappointing grade in your math class is lower than what you hoped or expected it would be. Disappointing comes from the verb disappoint, which means "frustrate expectations," but had an earlier definition of "remove from appointed office." The modern sense of disappoint and disappointing comes from "fail to keep an appointment."
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.
Towards the end of last season's disappointing campaign, when they finished 10th and won nothing, Chelsea co-owner Behdad Eghbali said their recruitment model needed a "tweak".
From BBC ● Jul. 29, 2026
“It felt disappointing because I liked him, but relieving because he wasn’t going to be a good partner,” Vlasova said.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 27, 2026
"Coming back from the vault was disappointing but I was super proud for Ab," said Emily.
From BBC ● Jul. 27, 2026
The 2021-2022 season is widely regarded as the most disappointing in team history.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 24, 2026
After jus’ two seconds of looking at the locomotive, I knowed there wasn’t gonna be nothing disappointing ’bout my first train ride!
From "The Journey of Little Charlie" by Christopher Paul Curtis
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.
