Caring

How to spell caring

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce caring

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does caring mean?

1. adjectiveShowing kindness, concern, and consideration for other people.
2. verbThe present participle of 'care'; the act of looking after or feeling concern for someone or something.

Caring in a sentence

• adjective

  The nurses on the ward were patient and caring with every patient.

• verb

  She spent years caring for her elderly parents at home.

• adjective

  She has a warm, caring nature that puts new colleagues at ease.

• verb

  He balances a full job with caring for two young children.

Where does caring come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The word grows out of the Old English noun 'caru' or 'cearu', which meant grief, sorrow, or anxious concern, and the related verb 'carian', meaning to feel worry or trouble over something. These come from a Germanic root tied to crying out or lamenting, so the earliest sense was much darker than the warm meaning we use today: to 'care' was to be burdened or weighed down. Over the centuries the emphasis softened from anxious worry toward attentive concern for another person, and by the modern era the present participle 'caring' had settled into an adjective describing someone kind and considerate. The spelling keeps a single 'r' and drops the silent 'e' of 'care' before the '-ing', which is the small trap that occasionally trips writers who want to double the consonant. It shares its deep ancestry with the still slightly mournful word 'careworn', a useful reminder of how far the meaning has travelled.

How the word is built

• care (Old English caru: concern, worry)
• -ing (adjective/participle suffix)