The Collaborative International Dictionary
engrossing \engrossing\ adj. capable of holding the attention completely; very interesting.
Syn: absorbing, fascinating, gripping, riveting.
Wiktionary
Utterly consuming one's time and attention. n. The act of one who engrosses, or buys up wholesale. v
Present participle of engross
WordNet
adj. capable of arousing and holding the attention; "a fascinating story" [syn: absorbing, fascinating, gripping, riveting]
Wikipedia
Engrossing, forestalling and regrating were marketing offences in English common law. The terms were used to describe unacceptable methods of influencing the market, sometimes by creating a local monopoly for a certain good, usually food. The terms were often used together, and with overlapping meanings. They are obsolete.
Blackstone’s Commentaries described them as offences against public trade:
forestalling - the buying or contracting for any merchandise or victual coming in the way of the market; or dissuading persons from bringing their goods or provisions there; or persuading them to enhance the price, when there; any of which practices make the market dearer to the fair trader.
regrating - the buying of corn or other dead victual, in any market, and selling it again at the same market, or within four miles of the place. For this also enhances the prices of the provisions, as every successive seller must have a successive profit.
engrossing - the getting into one’s possession, or buying up, large quantities of corn, or other dead victuals, with intent to sell them again. This must of course be injurious to the public, by putting it in the power of one or two rich men to raise the price of provisions at their own discretion.
Blackstone described a monopoly as “the same offence in other branches of trade”, i.e., not food.
Engrossing may refer to:
- Engrossing (law) – marketing offences in English common law.
- The process of preparing an engrossed bill in a legislature.
- Illuminated manuscript production and design processes.
Usage examples of "engrossing".
Faithful gives an engrossing picture of the heroic men and dogs involved in the battle to recapture the island of Guam during WWII.
And she and Louey talked about children who were to be rewarded with gilt-edged cards, and old men who had been so delighted with their tobacco, that they had quite forgotten there were some tracts for them as well, as though these were the most engrossing and entertaining topics in the world.
I have seen many splendid pageants and many sights, each of which might be the talk of a lifetime, but somehow nothing ever so engrossing, so thrilling, as that ghostly figure in flowing robes stealing across the piazza in starlight and silence--the princess of a broken kingdom, the priestess of a forgotten faith coming to her station to perform a jugglery of which she knew not even the meaning.
I entered into the toils and objects of my race with a seeming avidity more eager and engrossing than their own.
Among them was one, in the same writing, having nothing to do with the business of the shop, but announcing that a respectable man aged forty-five wanted engrossing or copying to execute with neatness and dispatch: Address to Nemo, care of Mr. Krook, within.
Intrigue and Masks realiz'd in locally obtain'd Fur and Plumage, clamorous with Chatter and what seems now more to resemble Dancing-Music, dominated from one wall by a gigantic rococo Mirror, British Chippendale to the innocent eye, engrossing easily the hundredth part of an acre, Dixon trying to stand his ground even as his partner has begun to walk away rapidly backward, for an Eye-blink there having pass'd over his Face a look of Alarm that has not possess'd it since the Seahorse, during the worst of that encounter.
Banish these plagues, and give orders that those who have dispeopled so much soil, may either rebuild the villages they have pulled down, or let out their grounds to such as will do it: restrain those engrossings of the rich, that are as bad almost as monopolies.
Banish these plagues, and give orders that those who have dispeopled so much soil, may either rebuild the villages they have pulled down, or let out their grounds to such as will do it: restrain those engrossings of the rich, that are as bad almost as monopo lies.
How she deals with all of this makes for a riveting and engrossing character study that offers no easy answers but a great deal of real, and very human, insight into who we are and why we are the way we are.
This story shows Dickson's skill, as he takes two human characters, making neither one sympathetic or easy to identify with, and still creates an engrossing story where these Kilkenny Cats flummox the belligerent aliens.
But the Game was so engrossing, so colorful and lifeful, that drink and drugs had little appeal to the Gamers.
Or he might dismiss his chauffeur and have Mark drive the Rolls out to one of the sawmills, or to a board meeting in the city, sitting up front beside him on the journey and reminiscing about those days in France, or going further back to the time before Mark was born, enjoying Mark's engrossing interest in talks of gold-prospecting and ivory-hunting in the great wilderness beyond the Limpopo River in the north.
Yet Niven masterfully tells a story about fascinating characters while he shows off this strange, engrossing world without losing the reader.