Interesting

How to spell interesting

11 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce interesting

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does interesting mean?

1. adjectiveArousing curiosity or holding the attention because it is unusual, engaging, or worth thinking about.

Interesting in a sentence

• The documentary raised several interesting points about household debt.

• She found the new job far more interesting than her old one.

Where does interesting come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word grows out of the Latin verb interesse, meaning literally 'to be between' or 'to be among', formed from inter ('between') and esse ('to be'). In Latin the impersonal form interest came to mean 'it makes a difference' or 'it concerns', and that sense of mattering or being of consequence passed into English through French, giving us the noun 'interest' for something that concerns or engages a person. The adjective 'interesting' was then built on that noun in the eighteenth century, originally meaning 'important' or 'of concern' before settling into its modern sense of 'arousing curiosity or attention'. The hidden middle syllable is the spelling trap: although careful spelling demands inter-est-ing, most speakers compress it to two beats and say 'intresting', which is exactly why the second 'e' so often vanishes in writing. Knowing that the core is the noun 'interest' plus a plain '-ing' keeps that vowel in place.

How the word is built

• inter- (Latin: between, among)
• -est (from esse, to be)
• -ing (adjective/participle suffix)