- 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.
We would recommend skipping The Dog Stars and The Whisper Man, which were both disappointing adaptations of great books.
From Slate ● Sep. 4, 2026
Instead, all of the tedious, disappointing, ridiculous components fuse, creating a viewing experience that is occasionally infuriating in the moment, but leaves the mind the second the credits roll.
From Salon ● Sep. 2, 2026
"We really like coming to Scarborough, but it would be disappointing to pay any extra," he said.
From BBC ● Sep. 1, 2026
“This outcome is disappointing given the amount of work that went into this process over the last two years and how close a constructive outcome seemed to be,” the Citi analysts added.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 31, 2026
If this was the afterlife, it was pretty disappointing.
From "City of the Plague God" by Sarwat Chadda
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.
