disarming
Americanadjective
adjective
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Etymology
Origin of disarming
Explanation
When something's disarming, it calms hostility. A disarming smile from you can transform what could have been a tense conversation with an angry neighbor. When you disarm a security system, it won't go off — everything is okay. The same thing happens when you act in a disarming way. A disarming gesture can make people feel less on their guard, like a famous actor whose disarming gesture shows he doesn't take himself so seriously after all. Disarming can also refer to the act of reducing military arms, or weapons.
Vocabulary lists containing disarming
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I've Been to the Mountaintop" (1968)
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This Week in Pop Culture: December 29, 2018 - January 4, 2019
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A Thousand Splendid Suns
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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.
In photographs from the era, de la Espriella sits in a small town where the leaders of the group had gathered to fight extradition efforts and get government benefits in exchange for disarming.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jun. 2, 2026
The combination of thematic sincerity and confident visual sophistication makes for a strangely disarming, almost lyrical experience, closer to a poem than a film — a feeling amplified by the movie’s brisk length.
From Salon • Jun. 2, 2026
In any case, every so often, she lets out a laugh that is so mischievous and exalting, or makes a joke that is completely disarming in its self-deprecation, and we all feel like we’ve won.
From Los Angeles Times • May 7, 2026
It said negotiations between the two countries would focus on "disarming Hezbollah and establishing peace relations between Israel and Lebanon".
From BBC • Apr. 9, 2026
To prove his point, he wiggled his ears, which framed his disarming smile like the handles of a fancy soup bowl.
From "In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson" by Bette Bao Lord
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.
