Glowing

How to spell glowing

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce glowing

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does glowing mean?

1. adjectiveGiving off a steady light, heat, or warm colour.
2. adjectiveExpressing great enthusiasm, warmth, or admiration.

Glowing in a sentence

• The glowing embers in the fireplace kept the room warm all night.

• The restaurant received a glowing review in the weekend paper.

• Her cheeks had a healthy, glowing flush after the long walk.

• His manager wrote a glowing reference for the job application.

Where does glowing come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Glowing is built on the verb glow, which descends from the Old English glowan, meaning to shine with a steady heat or to be radiant. That root belongs to a wider family of Germanic words connected to brightness and embers, and it is a close cousin of the word gleam, both pointing back to an ancient sense of shining light. For centuries glow described literally hot, luminous things such as coals or smouldering metal, and the present participle glowing simply named something in the act of giving off that light or warmth. Over time English speakers stretched the meaning outward, so a person could be glowing with health or happiness, and by extension a review or report could be glowing when it shone with enthusiastic praise. The spelling is straightforward once you remember it is just glow with the familiar -ing ending; the silent w that ends glow is preserved, so the word keeps its two-syllable shape.

How the word is built

• glow (Old English glowan: to shine with heat)
• -ing (adjective/participle suffix)