Inhibiting

How to spell inhibiting

10 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce inhibiting

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does inhibiting mean?

1. verbHolding back, restraining, or slowing down a process, feeling, or action.
2. adjectiveTending to make someone feel self-conscious or unable to act freely.

Inhibiting in a sentence

• verb

  The new drug works by inhibiting the growth of the bacteria.

• adjective

  The formal dress code felt rather inhibiting at the office party.

• verb

  A fear of being judged was inhibiting her from speaking in meetings.

• adjective

  Working under such close supervision can be deeply inhibiting.

Where does inhibiting come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This is the present participle of the verb 'inhibit', which English took from the Latin verb inhibere, meaning 'to hold in' or 'to restrain'. That Latin verb was built from the prefix in-, here carrying the sense of 'in' or 'back', and habere, the common verb meaning 'to hold' or 'to have'. The literal image is therefore one of holding something back, of checking its motion or growth. English adopted the word in the fifteenth century, originally in legal and religious contexts where a person could be formally forbidden or restrained from acting. The same habere root quietly sits inside many familiar relatives such as 'habit', 'exhibit' and 'prohibit', and recognising that shared 'hib' spelling helps fix the single 'h' and single 'b' that trip up writers. Over time the word broadened from formal prohibition to the modern senses of psychological restraint and the chemical or biological suppression of a process.

How the word is built

• in- (in, into)
• hib (from Latin habere: to hold)
• -it
• -ing (present participle/adjective suffix)