assuring

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of assure.

   The manager is assuring customers that their refunds will be processed quickly.

   Assuring the investors of steady returns took up most of the meeting.

   Note

   Behind the comforting adjective stands a verb that is always transitive and needs someone or something to act on. With a person as its object it takes a that-clause (assuring customers that refunds will come) or of (assuring investors of returns). With a result as its object it overlaps with ensure. An older use, promising to do something, is now obsolete.

2. 2
   adjective

   Serving to remove doubt or fear and restore a person's confidence.

   The doctor's assuring tone put the anxious patient at ease.

   She gave an assuring nod before the difficult conversation began.

   Similarreassuring

   Oppositealarming, worrying, unsettling, disconcerting

   Note

   The shorter twin of reassuring, used with the same meaning and the same grammar. It grades freely: more assuring, most assuring, and in Don Pendleton's Cold Fusion (2013) less assuring, said of a person. It describes people as readily as statements or news. Before a noun it can blur into the verb form: assuring words give comfort, while assuring someone is the act of giving it.

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