uplifting
Americanadjective
adjective
Etymology
Origin of uplifting
Explanation
When you stand on a beach and admire the uplifting of a kite into the blue sky, you're watching it move up. Watching that kite rise might be an uplifting, or moving, experience. Use the noun uplifting to describe the upward movement of something. You could describe the uplifting of a hot air balloon on a sunny day, or the uplifting of a girl's long hair in the wind. The action of something rising is an uplifting. A more common way to use the word is as an adjective describing something that figuratively lifts one's spirits or mood.
Vocabulary lists containing uplifting
Seedfolks
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"The Censors" by Luisa Valenzuela
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"The Americans: Reconstruction to the 21st Century," Vocabulary from Chapter 15
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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.
As uplifting as one-year moonshots are, big college endowments offer tuition-free lessons these days about how not to invest.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 23, 2026
To watch these real and fictional partnerships play out without doubting their credibility is… I don’t know, is uplifting the word?
From Salon ● Oct. 22, 2026
"When it's subsiding, that means that there's probably magma draining away from the volcano, but once the ground starts uplifting again, that can mean that there's potentially new magma moving in," Johnson said.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 19, 2026
Early on, Guidera was inspired by Walsh’s uplifting presence in the Venice surf scene.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 14, 2026
As always, the Dutch program was uplifting without being too optimistic.
From "The Diary of a Young Girl" by Anne Frank
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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.
