Challenging

//ˈt͡ʃæl.ɪn.d͡ʒɪŋ// adj, noun, verb

adj, noun, verb ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The act of making a challenge.

    "There are always sincere challengings of the findings, always the objections (sincere in another sense) of those whose interests seem threatened."

Verb
  1. 1
    present participle and gerund of challenge form-of, gerund, participle, present
Adjective
  1. 1
    Difficult, hard to do.
Adjective
  1. 1
    requiring full use of your abilities or resources wordnet
  2. 2
    disturbingly provocative wordnet
  3. 3
    stimulating interest or thought wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
provocativealluringambitiousarrogantaudaciousbold

Example

More examples

"It is challenging and I am learning a lot."

Etymology

From Middle English chalengynge; equivalent to challenge + -ing.

More for "challenging"

SynonymsSentencesPronunciationTranslate

Next best steps

Find stronger synonymsSee usage examplesCheck pronunciationBrowse writing guides

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.