demanding

1. 1
   adjective

   Requiring a great deal of endurance, strength, or patience.

   The expedition was demanding, testing the climbers' strength over many days.

   Long shifts in the emergency room are emotionally and physically demanding.

   Similarchallenging, taxing, exigent

   Oppositeeasy, undemanding, effortless

   Note

   An adjective built from demand + -ing, whose image is a task that seems to make demands of its own on whoever takes it on. It describes terrain, expeditions, shifts and jobs, and it pairs naturally with an adverb naming the kind of strain: physically, emotionally, mentally demanding. Taxing and challenging are close neighbors. When a person, not a task, is the one making demands, the word moves toward the "hard to satisfy" meaning.

2. 2
   adjective

   Expecting work of high quality, accuracy, or quantity, and hard to satisfy.

   The client was demanding, rejecting three drafts before approving the design.

   The editor is demanding, returning manuscripts until every fact checks out.

   Similarstrict, exacting, bossy, controlling, harsh

   Oppositeeasygoing, undemanding, lenient, tolerant

   Note

   Here the pressure comes from someone's standards rather than from the hardness of the work. The demanding party is a client, an editor or a connoisseur. A favorite frame is the superlative with of, as in "the most demanding of connoisseurs," which is usually there to praise whatever manages to satisfy them. Exacting is the closest synonym. Demanding is broader, because the demands can be for quantity as well as quality or accuracy.

3. 3
   verb

   Present participle of demand.

   Workers are demanding higher wages and safer conditions.

   The crowd kept demanding an encore long after the lights came up.

   Note

   The verb form shares its spelling with the adjective, and the two meet after be. "Workers are demanding higher wages" is the verb, and it takes an object. "The job is demanding" is the adjective. It stands alone and accepts very, more and most. As a gerund it fills a noun slot, as in "demanding a refund got us nowhere."

Showing meanings only. Show all 3