depressing

1. 1
   adjective

   Causing sadness, gloom, or a sense of hopelessness in those exposed to it.

   Like a heavy fog that settles over your mood and refuses to lift.

   The endless stream of bad headlines became genuinely depressing.

   She found the empty, run-down neighborhood deeply depressing.

   Similarsad, distressing, unpleasant, upsetting, saddening

   Oppositecheerful, uplifting, heartening, encouraging

   Note

   Born from the verb's participle, it has settled into a true adjective. It takes very, more and most (a more depressing winter, the most depressing week of the year), which a verb form cannot. That is the quick test when the two meet: the film is depressing, said of its effect, is the adjective, while the film is depressing audiences, with an object, is still the verb.

2. 2
   verb

   Present participle of depress.

   Repeated layoffs were depressing the entire region's confidence.

   By depressing the lever, she opened the trapdoor below.

   Note

   The form keeps every meaning of depress, including the physical one the adjectives lack: depressing a lever or a pedal is pressing it down. It also covers humbling pride, lowering economic activity, and, in algebra, reducing an equation to a lower degree. As a gerund it names the action itself. With an object it is the verb, and graded with very it has become the adjective for gloom.

3. 3
   adjective

   Causing a reduction in the overall level of economic activity.

   Like cold weather that keeps shoppers home and quiets the whole marketplace.

   Analysts described the import tariffs as depressing for the manufacturing sector.

   Rising borrowing costs proved depressing to consumer demand throughout the year.

   Similardamaging, harmful, detrimental

   Oppositestimulating

   Note

   Here the lowering is economic rather than emotional. A policy with a depressing effect on industry shrinks activity, and nobody need feel sad. It pairs naturally with effect. Where context is thin, as in depressing figures for exporters, it can blur into the gloomy sense, so make clear what is being reduced.

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