mattering

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of matter.

   The idea of mattering to future generations drives much of his work.

   After the layoffs, job titles quit mattering and real skills became everything.

   Note

   Because matter is a stative verb, its participle sits more comfortably as a gerund (quit mattering, the idea of mattering) than in a progressive like is mattering. The same spelling also carries the noun for significance, which can take a plural. In regional English of England and the Caribbean the verb can be transitive, meaning minding or caring about something. An archaic use describes an abscess forming pus.

2. 2
   nounrareuncountable

   The quality of being significant or important: the condition of counting for something rather than being negligible.

   Psychologists link a person's well-being to their sense of mattering within a community.

   But not all matterings matter the same: you value your daily respite at the coffee shop that's long brightened your mornings, but if that shop goes under, you wouldn't—I hope—be facing existential threat.

   2015, John M. Doris, Talking to Our Selves: Reflection

   Similarsignificance, importance, worth, relevance

   Oppositeinsignificance, unimportance

   Note

   A rare noun that has taken on a technical life in talk about well-being and agency. John M. Doris, in Talking to Our Selves (2015), even pluralizes it: not all matterings matter the same. Gordon Flett, quoted in Gail Cornwall's 2023 New York Times piece, calls it a core human need that people confuse with belonging, self-esteem and social connection. In everyday prose, significance or importance is the safer word.

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