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discomfiting

dis·com·fit·ingUK /dɪsˈkʌmfɪtɪŋ/adjective, verb

discomfiting is an adjective meaning “Tending to discomfit (“embarrass greatly; upset the composure of, disconcert”)” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled D-I-S-C-O-M-F-I-T-I-N-G and has 4 syllables (dis·com·fit·ing), and it appears about once in every 25 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data).

What does discomfiting mean?

adjective

  1. 1

    Tending to discomfit (“embarrass greatly; upset the composure of, disconcert”).

verb

  1. 1

    present participle and gerund of discomfit (a form of discomfit)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you pronounce discomfiting?

  • UK /dɪsˈkʌmfɪtɪŋ/
  • UK /dɪsˈkʌmfətɪŋ/
  • UK [-ɾɪŋ]

Discomfiting has 4 syllables, split dis·com·fit·ing in writing.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-I_learned_some_phrases-discomfiting.wav, En-us-discomfiting.mp3, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of discomfiting

  • more discomfiting comparative
  • most discomfiting superlative
  • discomfitting

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How common is discomfiting?

Discomfiting appears about once in every 25 million words in written English, the 150,355th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

Discomfiting in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

In the sense tending to discomfit:

LanguageWords
Germanbeunruhigend
Portuguesedesconcertante
Spanishdesconcertante

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does discomfiting come from?

From discomfit + -ing.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).