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depressing

adjective

Simple meaning

Causing a reduction in economic activity.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

dihprehsing

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US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

dɪpˈɹɛsɪŋ

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

adjective

  1. Causing a reduction in economic activity.

  2. Causing depression or sadness.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
B2 · Upper Intermediate (estimated)
Frequency
Uncommon
Typical Use
Neutral / general English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

This meaning: Causing a reduction in economic activity.

Used this way, depressing is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in finance or economics contexts.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
No strong connotation
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Where it naturally appears

  • Finance/economics

Nearby words

  • saddening , rarer, so it draws attention

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

More ways to use depressing

  • “The economic outlook is depressing.”adjective

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

depressing effectdepressing influencerather depressingdepressing picturedepressing thoughtdepressing circumstancesdepressing place

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Inflected forms

Grammatical variations of the same word.

  • depressverbBase word

    Lower someone's spirits.

Word family

Words built from the same root.

  • depressivenounDerived noun

    Someone suffering psychological depression.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

Sense: causing a reduction in economic activity

depressive

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.