- present participle of caress.
caressing
Americanadjective
-
gently touching, patting, or stroking a person or thing to show affection.
She stroked my face—temple, cheek, chin, and then up the other side in a caressing, sweeping gesture.
-
touching or seeming to touch a person or thing lightly and in a way that calms or soothes.
Over and over again, I repeated the figures until they became a caressing swash of sound inside my head and hummed me finally to sleep.
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of caressing
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
I even ponied up for a pay-per-view a few years back to see Mayweather spend eight rounds gently caressing Jake’s overmatched older brother, Logan.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 26, 2026
Jareth is an illusionist as beguiling and seductive as he is sinister, caressing bubbles and gravity-defiant glass spheres with liquid grace.
From Salon ● Jan. 24, 2026
The video, which was partly recorded inside the prison, shows him caressing a fighting cockerel and freely chatting to fellow inmates.
From BBC ● Jun. 26, 2025
I no longer notice the flashes of lime green tape caressing door frames, encircling bathroom floors and smothering naked outlets.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 3, 2024
She had her hands on either side of his face, caressing him, and then she pulled him into a hug.
From "Anger Is a Gift" by Mark Oshiro
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.