obliging
verb
Form of oblige , present participle of oblige.
Simple meaning
Provide a service or favor for someone.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
uhblyjingSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
əbˈlaɪdʒɪŋ
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.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
verb
present participle of oblige
Provide a service or favor for someone
present participle of oblige
To do (someone) a service or favour (hence, originally, creating an obligation).
present participle of oblige
To be indebted to someone.
present participle of oblige
To constrain someone by force or by social, moral or legal means.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Provide a service or favor for someone
Used this way, obliging is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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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.