- present participle of hearten.
heartening
Britishadjective
Explanation
Something heartening reassures or inspires you. You'll feel better after struggling with a long English essay when you read your teacher's heartening comments. If you're halfway through a marathon, the sight of your friends cheering you on is heartening. A shy new student will also find the warm welcome he gets from his classmates to be extremely heartening. This cheerful adjective comes from the verb hearten. "give confidence," or "encourage," which is rooted in a figurative sense of heart — to "give heart to" means "to give confidence to."
Vocabulary lists containing heartening
An Elephant in the Garden
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Favorable
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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.
"We didn't realise how wide the interest is; it's heartening to see that a lot of people care about this farm," said Hicks.
From BBC • Jun. 30, 2026
“One of the most heartening parts of this past year for me has been the outpouring of support I’ve received from women,” she declared in the video.
From Slate • May 6, 2026
To the audience, it’s a heartening buddy dramedy about two boys choosing to forge a brighter path and quickly realizing they make each other better people.
From Salon • Feb. 23, 2026
While Johnson said the outpouring for the family is heartening, others say they have been left uneasy.
From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 16, 2026
Perhaps the most heartening gain had been in infant mortality.
From "Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything" by Steven D. Levitt
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.
