Synonyms and Antonyms of heartening
1
having qualities which inspire hope
- a heartening visit to the hospital, where the patient was alert and sitting up
auspicious, bright, encouraging, fair, golden, hopeful, likely, optimistic, promising, propitious, rose-colored, roseate, rosy, upbeat
cheering, comforting, reassuring, soothing
assured, confident, decisive, doubtless, positive, sure, unhesitating
beamish, bullish, eupeptic
favorable, good
cheerless, comfortless
doubtful, dubious, uncertain
bearish, grim, negative, unfavorable
funereal, glum, gray (also grey), miserable, wretched
bleak, dark, depressing, desperate, discouraging, disheartening, dismal, downbeat, dreary, gloomy, hopeless, inauspicious, pessimistic, unencouraging, unlikely, unpromising, unpropitious
2
making one feel good inside
- hearing how his students still appreciated him after all those years was heartening to the music teacher
affecting, inspiring, inspiriting, moving, poignant, stirring, touching
edifying, elevating, uplifting
sympathetic, tender
kind, kindly, loving, warm
animating, enlivening, exciting, exhilarating, invigorating, rousing, stimulating, thrilling
pleasing, pleasurable, welcoming
cheerless, disappointing, disgruntling, displeasing, dissatisfying, heartbreaking, heartrending, saddening
discomforting, disconcerting, dismaying, distressing, disturbing, upsetting
cold, unfeeling, unfriendly, unkind, unloving, unpleasant
3
pointing toward a happy outcome
- the accomplishments of the first day were a heartening start to our renovation of the house
unfortunate, unhappy, unlucky
calamitous, catastrophic, disastrous, fatal, ruinous
baleful, dark, dire, direful, doomy, foreboding, gloomy, ill, ill-boding, menacing, minatory, ominous, portentous, sinister, threatening
