disheartening 1 of 2

disheartening

2 of 2

verb

present participle of dishearten

Example Sentences

Recent Examples of Synonyms for disheartening
Verb
  • Actions by officials in the two countries are also discouraging Canadian tourists from looking south.
    Skyler Swisher, The Orlando Sentinel, 12 Apr. 2025
  • Good air circulation will allow leaves and stems to dry out, discouraging disease.
    Beth Botts, Chicago Tribune, 12 Apr. 2025
Adjective
  • For the Congolese government, the ineffective Western responses follow a dismaying pattern.
    Michela Wrong, Foreign Affairs, 3 Mar. 2025
  • Americans, and a dismaying number of politicians, keep crying for a crackdown on crimes that aren’t happening.
    F.K. Plous, Chicago Tribune, 8 Jan. 2025
Adjective
  • Marijuana − medical and recreational − is legal throughout more than half of the United States, and for some looking to familiarize themselves with the plant and its effects, learning all of the associated terminology may feel daunting.
    Greta Cross, USA Today, 18 Apr. 2025
  • There’s more than science and math to baking, but the precise chemical reactions required to make a brownie chewy, cakey or fudgy, or the kinds of cause and effect that determine whether a dough rises or falls, can sometimes feel daunting.
    Jenn Harris, Los Angeles Times, 17 Apr. 2025
Adjective
  • Trump imperils Harvard’s nonprofit status Don Ingber, a renowned biologist at Harvard, woke up this week to a troubling email.
    Zachary Schermele, USA Today, 20 Apr. 2025
  • From around 2006 to 2010, a series of major business downturns, including a bankruptcy filing and several key lawsuits, led Kinkade into a downward spiral of troubling public behavior and substance abuse.
    Gary Goldstein, Los Angeles Times, 18 Apr. 2025
Adjective
  • Temu is running approximately 27,000 ads across Meta sites and apps globally, particularly in Europe and the U.K. That could be troublesome for Meta’s advertising business, which has gotten a significant boost from the discount retailer.
    Annie Palmer, CNBC, 16 Apr. 2025
  • This meant that instead of simply stopping Ukraine from being so troublesome, Russia now sought to demonstrate to NATO countries that it could not be broken by economic sanctions or the alliance’s weapons supplies to Ukraine.
    Lawrence D. Freedman, Foreign Affairs, 14 Apr. 2025
Adjective
  • Anime and manga imagined both dystopian and utopian futures, using stories that were nostalgic, upsetting, or a blend of both to process collective trauma.
    Yii-Jan Lin, The Conversation, 11 Apr. 2025
  • The idea of bringing new people to CMS, where hundreds of employees were recently fired as part of a sweeping reduction in force (RIF) at HHS, was upsetting to those who were present at the meeting.
    Leah Feiger, Wired News, 8 Apr. 2025
Adjective
  • Ghosts that wink could be scary but the face Sal makes is disturbing in other ways.
    Keith Phipps, Vulture, 16 Apr. 2025
  • In cases where advertising is inevitable, some prefer ads that appeal on a personal level over messaging that can be inappropriate or, even, disturbing and offensive.
    ArsTechnica, ArsTechnica, 16 Apr. 2025
Adjective
  • Bond traders in 2025: The bond market sell-off is more worrisome than the one in stocks.
    Susan Tompor, USA Today, 18 Apr. 2025
  • Given that, over the course of the show, White has written exactly one Black main character (though she’s appeared twice), that might be worrisome.
    Jason P. Frank, Vulture, 9 Apr. 2025
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

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Cite this Entry

“Disheartening.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/disheartening. Accessed 25 Apr. 2025.

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