intriguing

adjective

in·​trigu·​ing in-ˈtrē-giŋ How to pronounce intriguing (audio)
: engaging the interest to a marked degree : fascinating
an intriguing story

Examples of intriguing in a Sentence

The Huns are intriguing not only because of their notoriously hawkish history, but also because of their place as middlemen between Mongol and Turkic ethnicity. Victor L. Mote, Siberia, 1998
The next two phases of the Cambrian … mark the strangest, most important, and most intriguing of all episodes in the fossil record of animals—the short interval known as the Cambrian explosion … Stephen Jay Gould, Natural History, July/August 1998
The folklorist Jan Brunvand has documented hundreds of "urban legends," intriguing stories that everyone swears happened to a friend of a friend … and that circulate for years in nearly identical form in city after city, but that can never be documented as real events. Steven Pinker, The Language Instinct, 1994
The offer is very intriguing. an intriguing concept that should engender much debate among climatologists
Recent Examples on the Web But where Cassavetes artfully constructed Myrtle and built an intriguing blur between what is happening in her head and in the play being rehearsed, the blur here topples into a mess. David Benedict, Variety, 27 Mar. 2024 Sign up for for breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases. Escher Walcott, Peoplemag, 25 Mar. 2024 The intriguing black-and-white headshot has the star peering into the camera — in a way that caught the eye of fellow artist Camila Cabello, who voiced her reaction in the comments. Ashley Iasimone, Billboard, 24 Mar. 2024 As an armchair conspiracy theorist, the Bohemian Grove and the club and the secrets contained within those titans of all power is creepily intriguing to me. Brian Davids, The Hollywood Reporter, 24 Mar. 2024 That’s because the most intriguing ruins — a network of tunnels — are hidden under the surface. Aspen Pflughoeft, Miami Herald, 22 Mar. 2024 Among the most intriguing pieces is a painting on aluminum with partly overlapping rectangles that contain both crisp and bleary elements. Mark Jenkins, Washington Post, 22 Mar. 2024 However, these fade into the background as the film wanders into more effectively suspenseful territory, Mohan using darkness and light to intriguing ends. Katie Walsh, Los Angeles Times, 20 Mar. 2024 His childlike wonder drives the doc to intriguing places, but there’s not enough rigor here to bring any one insight into clear focus, only an unwieldy thesis about life (and capital-L Life, of course) that gets more and more diffuse the longer Kestner speaks. Manuel Betancourt, Variety, 13 Mar. 2024

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'intriguing.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

Etymology

see intrigue entry 1

First Known Use

1752, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of intriguing was in 1752

Dictionary Entries Near intriguing

Cite this Entry

“Intriguing.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/intriguing. Accessed 29 Mar. 2024.

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