stirring

comparative more stirring · superlative most stirring

1. invigorating or inspiring

   On Friday night Dion delivered a stirring rendition of the 1950 song accompanied by a pianist, with the Olympics rings above her.

   2024 July 27, Sammy Gecsoyler, “Céline Dion ‘so full of joy’ after return in Paris Olympics opening ceremony”, in theguardian.com

   3 more examples

   As he had said, his voice was hoarse, but he sang well enough, and it was a stirring tune, something between 'Clementine' and 'La Cucaracha'.

   1943 November – 1944 February (date written; published 1945 August 17), George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], Animal Farm […], London: Secker & Warburg, published May 1962, →OCLC

   But Chelsea, who left Didier Drogba on the bench as coach Carlo Ancelotti favoured Fernando Torres, staged a stirring fightback to move up to fourth and keep United in their sights on a night when nothing other than victory would have kept the Blues in contention.

   2011 March 1, Phil McNulty, “Chelsea 2 - 1 Man Utd”, in BBC

   22 March 2012, Scott Tobias, AV Club The Hunger Gameshttps://web.archive.org/web/20120324175255/http://www.avclub.com/articles/the-hunger-games,71293/ The opening crawl (and a stirring propaganda movie) informs us that “The Hunger Games” are an annual event in Panem, a North American nation divided into 12 different districts, each in service to the Capitol, a wealthy metropolis that owes its creature comforts to an oppressive dictatorship.

   Synonyms: rousing

1. gerundparticiplepresentpresent participle and gerund of stir

plural stirrings

1. countablegerunduncountableAn occasion on which something stirs or is stirred

   The reduction takes the central bank back to where it was in December 2005, when it began raising its key rate despite objections from some political figures and many economists about choking the early stirrings of a recovery in growth.

   2009 January 16, Carter Dougherty, “European Central Bank Cuts Key Rate”, in New York Times

   1 more example

   […] his inability to move freely in nature as the song's protagonist expects to, or to enjoy the emotional stirrings that such movement often precipitates. That is, the video shows how the African American subject is not given time, space, or opportunity to form the kinds of individualized, sentimental, wondrous, or otherwise normatively affective relationships that mainstream environmentalism champions.

   2018, Nicole Seymour, Bad Environmentalism, page 185