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.
The deal is a promising start for Ford Energy, which the company introduced as a provider of battery energy storage systems—or BESS—for utility-scale, data center, and commercial and industrial customers in the U.S.
From Barron's • May 18, 2026
The track record isn’t promising, according to Karim Marshall, director of climate and energy policy at the Consumer Federation of America.
From MarketWatch • May 18, 2026
Although the findings are promising, the research remains in the animal-testing stage.
From Science Daily • May 17, 2026
German drugmaker Boehringer Ingelheim recently said it had promising results from one such drug.
From The Wall Street Journal • May 17, 2026
To the Paris police, it was an extremely promising lead: a thief who stole from the Louvre and a Parisian painter who bought stolen goods.
From "The Mona Lisa Vanishes" by Nicholas Day
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.
