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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
engaging
adjective
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
an engaging personality (=pleasant, so that people like you)
▪ He is strikingly handsome with a very engaging personality.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ an engaging personality
▪ Her engaging personality has helped make her television's favorite talk-show hostess
▪ Komansky, the new chairman of the company, is a smart, straightforward, engaging fellow.
▪ Wyatt described her as "a lovely woman - sophisticated and engaging".
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Although there were fleeting moments of engaging interplay between the lower strings, the performance was strangely dispiriting.
▪ But Tom was also one of rugby's most engaging humorists.
▪ He had an engaging smile, quite boyish, which transformed his otherwise serious face.
▪ He smiled like an engaging small boy.
▪ Her engaging smile, her winsome manner and her impeccable behaviour soon endeared her to the public.
▪ So who the devil are these two engaging, literate, drug-free chatterers sitting down the pub?
▪ There is an engaging frankness in what Chris says.
▪ To some they're simply an engaging fantasy, but for others they create a secret world that can last a lifetime.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Engaging

Engaging \En*ga"ging\, a. Tending to draw the attention or affections; attractive; as, engaging manners or address. -- En*ga"ging*ly, adv. -- En*ga"ging*ness, n.

Engaging and disengaging gear or Engaging and disengaging machinery, that in which, or by means of which, one part is alternately brought into gear or out of gear with another part, as occasion may require.

Engaging

Engage \En*gage"\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Engaged; p. pr. & vb. n. Engaging.] [F. engager; pref. en- (L. in) + gage pledge, pawn. See Gage.]

  1. To put under pledge; to pledge; to place under obligations to do or forbear doing something, as by a pledge, oath, or promise; to bind by contract or promise. ``I to thee engaged a prince's word.''
    --Shak.

  2. To gain for service; to bring in as associate or aid; to enlist; as, to engage friends to aid in a cause; to engage men for service.

  3. To gain over; to win and attach; to attract and hold; to draw.

    Good nature engages everybody to him.
    --Addison.

  4. To employ the attention and efforts of; to occupy; to engross; to draw on.

    Thus shall mankind his guardian care engage.
    --Pope.

    Taking upon himself the difficult task of engaging him in conversation.
    --Hawthorne.

  5. To enter into contest with; to encounter; to bring to conflict.

    A favorable opportunity of engaging the enemy.
    --Ludlow.

  6. (Mach.) To come into gear with; as, the teeth of one cogwheel engage those of another, or one part of a clutch engages the other part.

Engaging

Encage \En*cage"\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Encaged; p. pr. & vb. n. Engaging.] [Pref. en- + cage: cf. F. encager.] To confine in a cage; to coop up.
--Shak.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
engaging

"interesting, winning, attractive," 1670s, present participle adjective from engage. Related: Engagingly.

Wiktionary
engaging
  1. 1 That engages the attention; engrossing, interesting; enthralling. 2 charming; attractive, especially of a manner or behaviour. v

  2. (present participle of engage English)

WordNet
engaging

adj. attracting or delighting; "an engaging frankness"; "a piquant face with large appealing eyes" [syn: piquant]

Usage examples of "engaging".

This is very cheap, and it is a great abridgment of the sacred right of self-government to hang men for engaging in this profitable trade.

Such a conception, appearing in a rude state of culture, before the lines between science, religion, and poetry had been sharply drawn, recommending itself alike by its simplicity and by its adaptedness to gratify curiosity and speculation in the formation of a thousand quaint and engaging hypotheses, would seem plausible, would be highly attractive, would very easily secure acceptance as a true doctrine.

He was lying near at hand, overwhelmed with grief and seasickness, and watching and listening with all his might for the amorous encounter he suspected us of engaging in.

Jigsaws, cards, roulette counters, poker chips, spillikins, marbles, yarrow stalks, dice, jacks, Trivial Pursuit wedges, bridge score-sheets, discarded Pictionary doodles, Scrabble tiles, bits of unidentifiable plastic and shards of bakelite, wood and metal formed a jumbled compost capable of engaging a dedicated housekeeper for several months of full-time sifting, cataloguing and sorting into the correct boxes.

He looked at the girl, who stared blankly at him, and turned to Bittle with an air of engaging frankness.

Risk involved in delaying until Blucher leaves the delta before engaging her is too high.

Rue de Miromesnil, between the Rue La Boetie and the Rue de Penthievre, offered an engaging aspect, with its bright facade and muslin-curtained windows.

At that time there were at least forty people in the bridal room, all laughing and shouting and engaging in various kinds of horseplay.

He came to offer me the services of his young brother Petronio during my stay in Ancona, instead of my engaging a valet de place.

As soon as I announced that I had come for the purpose of engaging a troupe of actors to perform in Corfu, the managers of the two companies then in Otranto came to the parlour to speak to me.

Moreover, from the year 1590 and onward the chapels of Crea were begun, and of these, by advice of Monsignor Tullio del Carretto, Bishop of Casale, at the bidding of Michel Angelo da Liverno, who was Vicar of Crea, Tabachetti designed not fifteen but forty, and found himself at the head of the direction of the great work that was then engaging the attention of the foremost Italian artists of the day.

She introduced Bertram to him with the best of intentions, but had she known that the engaging Chuffy had been reared by a misguided parent according to the principles laid down by the late Mr.

An engaging but somewhat mechanical attempt to correlate the basic sun-sign character studies to dreaming and generalized tendencies of personality manifested in dreams.

It occurred to Leigh that this man might know Emmet well, and when the car came in, he stood on the back platform for the purpose of engaging him in talk that might help him in his project.

Now, Klyd stood facing Enam, engaging his tentacles in a secure, protective hold.