enticing
Americanadjective
Usage
What does enticing mean? Enticing means having the effect of attracting, tempting, or drawing people in.Things that are described as enticing produce desire or attraction. The word is especially used to describe things that appeal to the senses. But something can be enticing for other reasons, as in The job offer was enticing due to the big salary increase, but I didn’t think the work would be fulfilling. The adjective enticing comes from the continuous tense (-ing form) of the verb entice, meaning to attract, allure, or tempt. (Entice is sometimes confused with the verb incite, which means to encourage, urge, prompt, or provoke someone to do something, especially something bad. Incite is usually used more negatively than entice.)Something that’s described as enticing is viewed as positive and desirous by the person whom it has enticed, but the word itself sometimes implies that such a thing serves to tempt people to do something that perhaps they shouldn’t, as in That chocolate is enticing, but I vowed to give up sweets for a while.Example: The enticing aroma of the roasted nuts draws people to the street cart.
Other Word Forms
- enticingly adverb
- enticingness noun
- nonenticing adjective
- nonenticingly adverb
- unenticing adjective
Etymology
Origin of enticing
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.
As rivals countered his poaching efforts with enticing packages of their own, the talent wars led to AI hires being paid more than NBA stars.
The production, directed by Sarah Benson, the former artistic director of Soho Rep, certainly fields an enticing cast.
By dangling an enticing offer like a 25% discount, companies are luring shoppers into a surveillance infrastructure that tracks their moves in order to discover how much price pain they can tolerate.
From MarketWatch
But it appears they are on the table now as a way of enticing players to stay in the meantime.
From BBC
The Jewish Week, while not quite on the same level of enthusiasm, did give the accurate and inadvertently enticing description “this pow! bam! sock! pie-in-the-face, ‘kick butt’ spaceage version of Chanukah is loud.
From Los Angeles Times
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.
