alarming

1. 1
   adjective

   Causing fear, worry, or apprehension; frightening.

   The report described an alarming increase in wildfires across the region.

   Her sudden silence was alarming to everyone in the room.

   Similarworrying, disturbing, frightening, troubling, startling

   Oppositereassuring, comforting, calming

   Note

   It can judge a trend rather than a single shock. In the phrase at an alarming rate it attaches to speed and quantity. Richard Foster, writing in RAIL in 2024, uses it for water and a "chemical soup" destroying rails at an alarming rate. Used this way, it calls a pace dangerous rather than a moment startling, which puts it nearer to worrying than to frightening.

2. 2
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of alarm.

   The sudden blackout was alarming the guests in the hotel lobby.

   Rumors of layoffs kept alarming the workers for weeks.

   Note

   Here the -ing form is still fully a verb, and the test is what follows it: an object. Because alarm is transitive, the participle needs someone to act on, as in the blackout was alarming the guests. Drop the object and add very, and you have crossed into the adjective "frightening", which alone takes more and most. As a gerund it heads a noun phrase: alarming the public was never the aim.

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