promising

1. 1
   adjective

   Showing signs of future success and likely to develop in a desirable way.

   The startup showed promising early growth, attracting several investors.

   Critics called the director's debut film a promising start to her career.

   Similarencouraging, auspicious, hopeful, bright, favorable

   Oppositeunpromising, inauspicious, discouraging, bleak

   Note

   Research writing leans on this word when it judges something by its future: arsenene is called a promising material for thermal management and other applications. It works the same way for people, as in a promising young apprentice, where the praise is for what they may become. Compare the "encouraging" meaning, which is about how a sign or result makes us feel now rather than what something may grow into.

2. 2
   adjective

   Encouraging and inspiring a feeling of confidence.

   The peace talks ended on a promising note, with both sides agreeing to meet again.

   Investors found the quarterly report promising, and confidence returned to the market.

   Similarencouraging, hopeful, reassuring, heartening, positive

   Oppositediscouraging, disheartening, gloomy, bleak

3. 3
   verb

   Present participle of promise.

   The senator is promising lower taxes throughout her campaign.

   By promising too much, the company set itself up to disappoint.

   Note

   The verb form keeps every construction of promise. It can take a person and a thing together (promising voters lower taxes), a single object, or none at all. Its other meaning, giving grounds for expectation (clouds promising rain), is close to the adjective of potential. One test tells them apart: only the adjective takes more and most (a more promising start), while the verb takes an object.

4. 4
   noununcountable

   The act or practice of making a promise.

   The endless promising of better days kept the tired workers hopeful.

   Repeated promising without action eventually wears trust away.

   Similarpledging

   Note

   A countable noun that philosophers put to work. Judith Jarvis Thomson's The Realm of Rights (1992) treats promisings as one kind of word-giving, so each act of promising becomes a separate event that can be counted and compared. Where promise names what is pledged, promising names the doing of it. That makes it the natural choice when the act itself is under discussion, as it is in the ethics of commitment.

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