Urging

How to spell urging

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce urging

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does urging mean?

1. verbStrongly encouraging or pressing someone to do something.
2. nounThe act of strongly encouraging or pressing someone; persistent encouragement.

Urging in a sentence

• verb

  The coach kept urging the team to push harder in the final minutes.

• noun

  At the urging of her family, she finally agreed to see a specialist.

• verb

  She spent the meeting urging her colleagues to back the new policy.

• noun

  Only after months of gentle urging did he submit the manuscript.

Where does urging come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word grows from the verb 'urge', which English borrowed in the 1500s from the Latin verb urgere, meaning 'to press', 'to push', or 'to drive forward'. The same Latin root sits behind 'urgent', describing something that presses for immediate attention. When the verb gained its English '-ing' ending, the silent 'e' of 'urge' was dropped before the suffix, which is exactly the small spelling decision that trips writers up. The original sense of pressing or driving still lingers, since to keep urging someone is to keep applying gentle pressure. As a gerund, 'urging' can also work as a noun, as in 'the urging of friends', referring to that act of persistent encouragement.

How the word is built

• urge (from Latin urgere: to press, drive)
• -ing (present participle / gerund suffix)