"arresting" meaning in English

See arresting in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Adjective

IPA: /əˈɹɛstɪŋ/ Audio: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-arresting.wav Forms: more arresting [comparative], most arresting [superlative]
Head templates: {{en-adj}} arresting (comparative more arresting, superlative most arresting)
  1. (figurative) Striking, gripping. Tags: figuratively Derived forms: arrestingly, arrestingness
    Sense id: en-arresting-en-adj-ZTaR-GTs Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 60 40 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 73 27 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 79 21

Verb

IPA: /əˈɹɛstɪŋ/ Audio: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-arresting.wav
Head templates: {{head|en|verb form}} arresting
  1. present participle and gerund of arrest Tags: form-of, gerund, participle, present Form of: arrest Derived forms: arresting gear
    Sense id: en-arresting-en-verb-C~AzVyAm
{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "more arresting",
      "tags": [
        "comparative"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "most arresting",
      "tags": [
        "superlative"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "arresting (comparative more arresting, superlative most arresting)",
      "name": "en-adj"
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  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "adj",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "60 40",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "73 27",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "79 21",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "derived": [
        {
          "word": "arrestingly"
        },
        {
          "word": "arrestingness"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              60,
              69
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2001, New York Times Theater Reviews, The New York Times Film Reviews, 1999-2000, page 146:",
          "text": "There's a little of each in \"Julien Donkey-Boy,\" a visually arresting, dramatically blurry portrait of a schizophrenic.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              55,
              64
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2025 March 18, Samuel Moyn, “Can Democrats Learn to Dream Big Again?”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, archived from the original on 27 Mar 2025:",
          "text": "This story of how American originality lost its way is arresting and well told. On an alternate timeline without Donald Trump in office dismantling the American scientific establishment and Elon Musk kneecapping the American state, it might have been the manifesto of a new politics.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Striking, gripping."
      ],
      "id": "en-arresting-en-adj-ZTaR-GTs",
      "links": [
        [
          "Striking",
          "striking"
        ],
        [
          "gripping",
          "gripping"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(figurative) Striking, gripping."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "figuratively"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/əˈɹɛstɪŋ/"
    },
    {
      "audio": "LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-arresting.wav",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/6/63/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Vealhurl-arresting.wav/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Vealhurl-arresting.wav.mp3",
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    }
  ],
  "word": "arresting"
}

{
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    {
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        "1": "en",
        "2": "verb form"
      },
      "expansion": "arresting",
      "name": "head"
    }
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  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "derived": [
        {
          "word": "arresting gear"
        }
      ],
      "form_of": [
        {
          "word": "arrest"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "present participle and gerund of arrest"
      ],
      "id": "en-arresting-en-verb-C~AzVyAm",
      "links": [
        [
          "arrest",
          "arrest#English"
        ]
      ],
      "tags": [
        "form-of",
        "gerund",
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/əˈɹɛstɪŋ/"
    },
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      "audio": "LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-arresting.wav",
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    }
  ],
  "word": "arresting"
}
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    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
    "English non-lemma forms",
    "English verb forms",
    "Pages with 1 entry",
    "Pages with entries"
  ],
  "derived": [
    {
      "word": "arrestingly"
    },
    {
      "word": "arrestingness"
    }
  ],
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "more arresting",
      "tags": [
        "comparative"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "most arresting",
      "tags": [
        "superlative"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
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      "args": {},
      "expansion": "arresting (comparative more arresting, superlative most arresting)",
      "name": "en-adj"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "adj",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              60,
              69
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2001, New York Times Theater Reviews, The New York Times Film Reviews, 1999-2000, page 146:",
          "text": "There's a little of each in \"Julien Donkey-Boy,\" a visually arresting, dramatically blurry portrait of a schizophrenic.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              55,
              64
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2025 March 18, Samuel Moyn, “Can Democrats Learn to Dream Big Again?”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, archived from the original on 27 Mar 2025:",
          "text": "This story of how American originality lost its way is arresting and well told. On an alternate timeline without Donald Trump in office dismantling the American scientific establishment and Elon Musk kneecapping the American state, it might have been the manifesto of a new politics.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Striking, gripping."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "Striking",
          "striking"
        ],
        [
          "gripping",
          "gripping"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(figurative) Striking, gripping."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "figuratively"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/əˈɹɛstɪŋ/"
    },
    {
      "audio": "LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-arresting.wav",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/6/63/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Vealhurl-arresting.wav/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Vealhurl-arresting.wav.mp3",
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    }
  ],
  "word": "arresting"
}

{
  "categories": [
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    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
    "English non-lemma forms",
    "English verb forms",
    "Pages with 1 entry",
    "Pages with entries"
  ],
  "derived": [
    {
      "word": "arresting gear"
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "verb form"
      },
      "expansion": "arresting",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "form_of": [
        {
          "word": "arrest"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "present participle and gerund of arrest"
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "arrest",
          "arrest#English"
        ]
      ],
      "tags": [
        "form-of",
        "gerund",
        "participle",
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      ]
    }
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      "ipa": "/əˈɹɛstɪŋ/"
    },
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    }
  ],
  "word": "arresting"
}

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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-04-26 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-04-01 using wiktextract (7de0cf9 and 9452535). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.