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DEMANDING
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Requiring more than usually expected or thought due; especially great patience and effort and skill
Example:
a baby can be so demanding
Classified under:
Similar:
exacting; exigent (requiring precise accuracy)
hard-to-please; hard to please ((of persons) fussy and demanding)
needy (demanding or needing attention, affection, or reassurance to an excessive degree)
rigorous; stringent; tight (demanding strict attention to rules and procedures)
exacting; stern; strict (severe and unremitting in making demands)
Also:
difficult; hard (not easy; requiring great physical or mental effort to accomplish or comprehend or endure)
Antonym:
undemanding (requiring little if any patience or effort or skill)
II. (verb)
Sense 1
-ing form of the verb demand
Context examples:
The one great outrage of her life, demanding to be constantly avenged, was the passage of a donkey over that immaculate spot.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
Perhaps Catherine was wrong in not demanding the cause of that gentle emotion—but she was not experienced enough in the finesse of love, or the duties of friendship, to know when delicate raillery was properly called for, or when a confidence should be forced.
(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)
The methods we use in the laboratory are very different of those used, for example, by the Police, which uses the so‑called strategic interviewing (with questionnaires including ‘tricky’ questions and demanding a lot of details) to try and catch a liar.
(The most reliable scientific model to date for detecting when a person is lying, based on thermography, University of Granada)
But at other times doubt and alarm intermingled with his hopes; and when he thought of her acknowledged disinclination for privacy and retirement, her decided preference of a London life, what could he expect but a determined rejection? unless it were an acceptance even more to be deprecated, demanding such sacrifices of situation and employment on his side as conscience must forbid.
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
She was then able to walk, though but slowly, and was moving away—but her terror and her purse were too tempting, and she was followed, or rather surrounded, by the whole gang, demanding more.
(Emma, by Jane Austen)
Violent as he had seemed in his despair, he, in truth, loved me far too well and too tenderly to constitute himself my tyrant: he would have given me half his fortune, without demanding so much as a kiss in return, rather than I should have flung myself friendless on the wide world.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
She turned from sister to sister, demanding their congratulations; and when at length they all sat down, looked eagerly round the room, took notice of some little alteration in it, and observed, with a laugh, that it was a great while since she had been there.
(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)
“What the hell are you up to?” he was demanding.
(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)
Or possibly your child’s high school may call you in to inform you the school is demanding the entire student body have a drug test that day, with no waiting period.
(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)
Meg returned to her place, and supper was progressing pleasantly, when the little ghost walked again, and exposed the maternal delinquencies by boldly demanding, "More sudar, Marmar."
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
