reassuring

1. 1
   adjective

   Causing or restoring a sense of comfort or confidence.

   The doctor's reassuring tone helped settle the patient's fears.

   There was something deeply reassuring about the familiar evening routine.

   Similarcomforting, soothing, heartening, encouraging, calming

   Oppositealarming, disturbing, worrying, unsettling

   Note

   It works as easily after a verb as before a noun. The frame it is reassuring to… names a feeling, as in Nelson Mandela's "It was reassuring to be back in the regent's warm embrace." Negated, it becomes dry understatement: when Margery Allingham writes that a face "was not reassuring," the face is plainly alarming. It compares with more and most, never with -er.

2. 2
   verb

   Present participle of reassure.

   The nurse spent the evening reassuring anxious families in the waiting room.

   He stood by the door, reassuring each guest as they arrived.

   Note

   This is the verb form behind every other use of the spelling. It takes an object (reassuring anxious families) and carries both of the verb's meanings, so in insurance it can also mean reinsuring a risk. The insurance sense stays with the verb. A quick test tells it from the comforting adjective: the adjective accepts more and most, while the verb form takes a direct object instead.

3. 3
   noununcountable

   The giving of comfort or confidence to someone who is worried or uncertain.

   The constant reassuring from her friends got her through a difficult week.

   No amount of reassuring could convince him that the old bridge was safe to cross.

   Similarreassurance, encouragement, comfort, support

   Note

   A true noun rather than a verb form, and the plural proves it. Mark Twain writes in 1900 of "the Major's kindly pettings and reassurings," with an adjective in front and an -s on the end. The verb form would take an object instead (reassuring the boy). Reassurance means the same, but the -ing noun, especially in the plural, presents comfort as a string of separate small acts.

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