: causing worry : creating reason for worry : troubling
a worrying trend/development
a worrying question
The presence of the knife on the stage of the murder was a worrying circumstance for Wilson.—
Mark Twain
Mark Twain
worryingly
adverb
When the secretary returned, she handed us an envelope that looked worryingly official …
—Caroline Alexander
Caroline Alexander
… money held by households has risen at a worryingly slow rate over the past year …
—The Economist
The Economist
Examples of worrying in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
In some ways, the most worrying numbers concern his playing time.
—Oliver Kay, The Athletic, 9 Jan. 2025
The patient's virus did have some rare and potentially worrying mutations, the sequencing revealed.
—Alexander Tin, CBS News, 7 Jan. 2025
The possibility of outages due to attack or accident is so worrying that NATO is funding a project to quickly detect undersea-cable damage and reroute data to satellites.
—IEEE Spectrum, 6 Jan. 2025
Need to focus on growth Economists say that the lack of budgetary plans means that Europe’s major economies will not be able to fully focus on policies aimed at economic expansion, continuing a worrying trend in recent years of anaemic growth.
—Holly Ellyatt, CNBC, 2 Jan. 2025
See all Example Sentences for worrying 
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Oliver Kay, The Athletic, 9 Jan. 2025
The patient's virus did have some rare and potentially worrying mutations, the sequencing revealed.
—Alexander Tin, CBS News, 7 Jan. 2025
The possibility of outages due to attack or accident is so worrying that NATO is funding a project to quickly detect undersea-cable damage and reroute data to satellites.
—IEEE Spectrum, 6 Jan. 2025
Need to focus on growth Economists say that the lack of budgetary plans means that Europe’s major economies will not be able to fully focus on policies aimed at economic expansion, continuing a worrying trend in recent years of anaemic growth.
—Holly Ellyatt, CNBC, 2 Jan. 2025
See all Example Sentences for worrying
Dictionary Entries Near worrying
Cite this Entry
“Worrying.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/worrying. Accessed 18 Jan. 2025.
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