Comforting

How to spell comforting

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce comforting

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does comforting mean?

1. adjectiveGiving a sense of relief, reassurance, or ease from worry or distress.
2. verbPresent participle of comfort: actively consoling or reassuring someone in distress.

Comforting in a sentence

• adjective

  A bowl of hot soup felt comforting after the long drive home.

• verb

  She spent the evening comforting her friend after the bad news.

• adjective

  The nurse spoke in a calm, comforting tone before the procedure.

• verb

  The volunteers were comforting the families waiting at the hospital.

Where does comforting come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb confortare, meaning 'to strengthen greatly', which was built from the intensifying prefix com- and the adjective fortis, meaning 'strong'. English took it through Old French conforter during the 1200s, where it carried the sense of encouraging or strengthening someone in body or spirit. The original idea was not so much soft reassurance as actual fortification: to comfort someone was to make them stronger. Over the centuries the meaning softened toward soothing and consoling, which is how we use 'comforting' today. The buried fort, the same root that gives us 'fortress' and 'fortify', is a handy reminder that the middle is spelled f-o-r-t and not 'cumf' as the unstressed vowel might tempt you to write.

How the word is built

• com- (intensive, from Latin)
• fort (strong, from Latin fortis)
• -ing (participle/adjective suffix)