Meanings
- gerundparticiplepresentpresent participle and gerund of challenge
comparative more challenging · superlative most challenging
plural challengings
- The act of making a challenge.
There are always sincere challengings of the findings, always the objections (sincere in another sense) of those whose interests seem threatened.
1918, Estcourt Rowland Metzner, The conflict of tax laws, page 151
Synonyms & antonyms
adjectivestimulating interest or thought
adjectivedisturbingly provocative
Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.
Origin
- Middle Englishchalengynge
- Englishchallenging
From Middle English chalengynge; equivalent to challenge + -ing.
More words from Middle English
Full word history & related roots →Translations
Bulgarian предизвикателен
- предизвикателен (predizvikatelen)difficult; hard to do
Catalan desafiador
- desafiadordifficult; hard to do
Chinese Mandarin 很有挑戰性, 很有挑战性
- 很有挑戰性difficult; hard to do
- 很有挑战性 (hěn yǒu tiǎnzhànxìng)difficult; hard to do
- 困难的difficult; hard to do
Danish udfordrende
- udfordrendedifficult; hard to do
Dutch uitdagend
- uitdagenddifficult; hard to do
Finnish haastava, vaikea
- haastavadifficult; hard to do
- vaikeadifficult; hard to do
- hankaladifficult; hard to do
French difficile, stimulant
- difficiledifficult; hard to do
- stimulantdifficult; hard to do
- éprouvantdifficult; hard to do
German anspruchsvoll, herausfordernd
- anspruchsvolldifficult; hard to do
- herausfordernddifficult; hard to do
Hebrew מאתגר
- מאתגר (me'atger)difficult; hard to do
Italian impegnativo, difficoltoso
- impegnativodifficult; hard to do
- difficoltosodifficult; hard to do
Polish trudny, wymagający
- trudnydifficult; hard to do
- wymagającydifficult; hard to do
Portuguese desafiador
- desafiadordifficult; hard to do
Russian испы́тывающий, трудновыполни́мый
- испы́тывающий (ispýtyvajuščij)difficult; hard to do
- трудновыполни́мый (trudnovypolnímyj)difficult; hard to do
Spanish retante, retador
- retantedifficult; hard to do
- retadordifficult; hard to do
- suponer un retodifficult; hard to do
Swedish utmanande
- utmanandedifficult; hard to do
Cite this entry
challenging. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/challenging
“challenging.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/challenging. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “challenging,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/challenging.
Source: challenging on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.