Forgiving

How to spell forgiving

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce forgiving

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does forgiving mean?

1. adjectiveWilling to pardon faults or mistakes; tolerant and not harsh in judgement.
2. verbThe present participle of forgive: in the act of pardoning someone or cancelling a debt.

Forgiving in a sentence

• adjective

  Her forgiving nature meant the argument was quickly behind them.

• verb

  The bank is forgiving part of the loan to help small businesses recover.

• adjective

  The manager took a forgiving approach when a new hire made an honest error.

• verb

  She found herself slowly forgiving him for the years of silence.

Where does forgiving come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word grows from the Old English verb forgiefan, which combined the intensive prefix for- with giefan, the ordinary verb meaning 'to give'. The literal sense was something like 'to give up' or 'to give away completely', and from there it came to mean granting a pardon and giving up any claim to punishment or resentment. The pattern is shared across the Germanic languages: German has vergeben and Dutch has vergeven, all built from the same 'for- plus give' formula. The -ing form simply turns the verb into a describing word for a person, attitude, or thing that readily pardons or tolerates faults. Because the heart of the word is the everyday verb 'give', the spelling is regular once you remember that there is no doubling and no silent letters; the single trap is hearing the unstressed first syllable and writing 'for-' correctly.

How the word is built

• for- (intensive prefix, here 'completely, away')
• give (from Old English giefan, to give)
• -ing (forming an adjective or present participle)