Intimidating

How to spell intimidating

12 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce intimidating

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does intimidating mean?

1. adjectiveCausing fear, nervousness, or a loss of confidence, often because something seems large, powerful, or difficult.

Intimidating in a sentence

• The new manager had an intimidating reputation for cutting budgets without warning.

• Facing a panel of twelve interviewers felt deeply intimidating to most candidates.

Where does intimidating come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb intimidare, meaning 'to make afraid', which was formed from the prefix in- (here acting as an intensifier, 'into' or 'thoroughly') joined to timidus, meaning 'fearful' or 'easily frightened'. That adjective in turn rests on the verb timere, 'to fear', the same root that gives English the everyday word 'timid'. The Latin verb passed into English in the early seventeenth century, first as the verb 'intimidate', meaning to fill someone with fear so as to control them, and 'intimidating' developed as its participle and descriptive adjective. A useful spelling memory is that the heart of the word is plain 'timid', so a fearful person is at the centre of something that is intimidating; the surrounding letters are simply the prefix in- at the front and the verb endings at the back, and none of the consonants doubles.

How the word is built

• in- (into, used as an intensifier)
• timid (from Latin timidus: fearful, from timere: to fear)
• -ate (verb-forming suffix)
• -ing (present participle / adjective ending)