promising
Americanadjective
adjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of promising
Explanation
Promising things are encouraging or hopeful — they give you every sign that they'll be successful in the future. A promising early spring hints that the rest of the season will be warm and full of flowers. A promising ballet dancer is young, but off to a very talented start. If you pick up a novel in a bookstore and the first few pages look promising, you'll probably buy it. Promising things are full of promise, "an indication that something will occur." The Latin root is promittere, "put forth," from pro-, "forward," and mittere, "send."
Vocabulary lists containing promising
Shine On, Luz Véliz!
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Are You Ready to Hatch an Unusual Chicken?
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Honestly Elliott
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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.
"It's looking promising, but the only way you can find out is if you listen in," he says.
From BBC ● Nov. 6, 2026
“Firms like JPMorgan want us to rebalance, but our focus is on performance,” said Scott, the architect of the portfolios, which are built around picking promising companies and holding their shares for long periods.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 6, 2026
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology spinout, founded in 2023, offers AI models designed to run directly on a device—in this case, on the car itself—rather than the cloud, promising more privacy and lower latency.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 5, 2026
Membranes have emerged as a promising alternative because they can separate substances without requiring the extreme temperatures used in conventional distillation.
From Science Daily ● Nov. 5, 2026
When the enlisted women were demobilized, they had to sign a pledge promising they’d do just that—not say anything about what they’d done.
From "A Thousand Sisters" by Elizabeth Wein
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
