Stimulating

How to spell stimulating

11 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce stimulating

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does stimulating mean?

1. adjectiveEncouraging lively interest, energy, or enthusiasm; mentally exciting or invigorating.
2. verbPresent participle of stimulate: actively rousing something into greater activity or growth.

Stimulating in a sentence

• adjective

  The evening seminar was so stimulating that nobody noticed the time.

• verb

  The government hopes the tax cuts are stimulating demand across the housing market.

• adjective

  She found the new role far more stimulating than her previous desk job.

• verb

  The trainer kept stimulating the muscle group with light resistance exercises.

Where does stimulating come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb stimulare, meaning 'to goad, prick, or urge on', which was built directly on the noun stimulus, the name for the sharp, pointed stick that Roman farmers used to drive their cattle forward. From that very physical idea of jabbing an animal into motion, the sense broadened to any kind of spurring or rousing, whether of the body or the mind. English took up 'stimulate' in the early seventeenth century, and the present participle 'stimulating' soon settled into use as an adjective for anything that excites, energises, or awakens lively interest. The original noun stimulus survives unchanged in modern English with its plural 'stimuli', a clue to the spelling: the heart of the word is stimul-, and the tricky part for writers is simply remembering the single -m- and the -ate ending before -ing. The same root quietly underlies the medical idea of a stimulant, a substance that goads the system into greater activity.

How the word is built

• stimul- (from Latin stimulus: a goad or pointed stick)
• -ate (verb-forming suffix)
• -ing (present participle / adjective suffix)