appreciating

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of appreciate.

   The investors are appreciating the steady gains in their portfolio.

   Appreciating fine art requires patience and an open mind.

   Note

   One spelling, two jobs: the progressive participle (she is appreciating the help) and the gerund that heads a noun phrase (appreciating fine art takes patience). Check what follows it. With no object, as in the house is appreciating, the verb has its money sense of rising in value. With an object, it means valuing something, being grateful for it, or grasping it.

2. 2
   adjective

   Having or showing appreciation; warmly thankful toward or regarding something.

   She cast an appreciating look at the chef as the dishes arrived.

   He wrote an appreciating note thanking the whole team for their effort.

   Similarappreciative, grateful, thankful, admiring

   Oppositeungrateful, unappreciative

   Note

   An adjective that does the work of appreciative and grades the same way: more appreciating, most appreciating. Letitia Elizabeth Landon's Romance and Reality (1831) calls Emily "such an appreciating listener," placing it before a noun, where it sits most naturally. Appreciative is the clearer choice today. Before nouns like asset or stock, appreciating reads as the rising-in-value verb form.

3. 3
   noununcountable

   The recognition or grateful acknowledgment of something's worth; appreciation.

   Note

   A countable noun for single acts of appreciation, each one an occasion rather than a feeling. Theodore Cheney's Getting the Words Right (2005) pairs it with readings: "my many readings and appreciatings," the marks a devoted reader leaves in a favorite book. The plural is where it stands out. In the singular it blurs into the gerund, and appreciation remains the ordinary word.

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