determining

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of determine.

   The committee is determining how to allocate the remaining funds.

   Determining the exact cause of the failure required weeks of testing.

   Note

   One spelling, two verb jobs. After be it forms the progressive (the committee is determining how to proceed). Without an auxiliary it works as a noun naming the activity (determining the cause took weeks). It can carry any meaning of determine, from working something out to resolving on a course of action. To tell it from the adjective meaning 'decisive', check what follows: the verb takes an object, while the adjective can be graded.

2. 2
   adjective

   Having the power to decide or settle an outcome; serving as its cause.

   Cost proved the determining factor when the board chose a supplier.

   Public opinion became a determining influence on the final policy.

   Similardeciding, decisive, key, crucial, critical

   Oppositeminor, marginal, insignificant, incidental

   Note

   An adjective of degree as much as of cause: one factor can be more determining than another, as when financial clout is judged a more determining factor in trade policy than voting power. It sits comfortably before a noun (a determining factor, a determining influence) or after a linking verb, and it can take of to name what it decides: more determining of economic health. It belongs to the vocabulary of policy and social analysis.

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