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TEMPTING
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Very pleasantly inviting
Example:
a tempting repast
Synonyms:
tantalising; tantalizing; tempting
Classified under:
Similar:
inviting (attractive and tempting)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Highly attractive and able to arouse hope or desire
Example:
a tempting invitation
Synonyms:
alluring; beguiling; enticing; tempting
Classified under:
Similar:
seductive (tending to entice into a desired action or state)
Derivation:
temptingness (the power to entice or attract through personal charm)
II. (verb)
Sense 1
-ing form of the verb tempt
Context examples:
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)
The weather was not tempting enough to draw the two others from their pencil and their book, in spite of Marianne's declaration that the day would be lastingly fair, and that every threatening cloud would be drawn off from their hills; and the two girls set off together.
(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)
That which gave me most uneasiness among these maids of honour (when my nurse carried me to visit then) was, to see them use me without any manner of ceremony, like a creature who had no sort of consequence: for they would strip themselves to the skin, and put on their smocks in my presence, while I was placed on their toilet, directly before their naked bodies, which I am sure to me was very far from being a tempting sight, or from giving me any other emotions than those of horror and disgust: their skins appeared so coarse and uneven, so variously coloured, when I saw them near, with a mole here and there as broad as a trencher, and hairs hanging from it thicker than packthreads, to say nothing farther concerning the rest of their persons.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
When they came out through the French window, there was the pond with one tempting little hole in the ice, right in front of their noses.
(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
“David Copperfield,” said Miss Murdstone, “I need not enlarge upon family circumstances. They are not a tempting subject.”
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
Demi paused to consider the new relationship before he compromised himself by the rash acceptance of a bribe, which took the tempting form of a family of wooden bears from Berne.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
“Quite tempting! I'm very fond of peaches. Happy to make your acquaintance, Mr. Copperfield, I'm sure.”
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
But there have been times since, in my manhood, many times there have been, when I have thought, Is it possible, among the possibilities of hidden things, that in the sudden rashness of the child and her wild look so far off, there was any merciful attraction of her into danger, any tempting her towards him permitted on the part of her dead father, that her life might have a chance of ending that day?
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
What with the novelty of this cookery, the excellence of it, the bustle of it, the frequent starting up to look after it, the frequent sitting down to dispose of it as the crisp slices came off the gridiron hot and hot, the being so busy, so flushed with the fire, so amused, and in the midst of such a tempting noise and savour, we reduced the leg of mutton to the bone.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
