poising

verb

present participle of poise
1
as in bracing
to prepare (oneself) mentally or emotionally the disgraced business executive poised herself for the difficult press conference

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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
2
as in hovering
to rest or move along the surface of a liquid or in the air the falcon poised in the air for an instant before diving to attack its prey

Synonyms & Similar Words

Antonyms & Near Antonyms

Example Sentences

Recent Examples of Synonyms for poising
  1. bracing
  2. hovering
  3. fortifying
  4. floating
  5. readying
  6. sailing
  7. swimming
Verb
  • Investors are bracing for the Federal Reserve to again hike interest rates after the Labor Department said Wednesday that consumer prices rose more in September than economists had expected.
    — Eleanor Mueller, semafor.com, 14 Oct. 2026
  • And for months, Hollywood has been bracing itself for the inevitable thousands of layoffs that will come out of the Skydance merger.
    — Eric Vilas-Boas, Vulture, 14 Oct. 2026
Definition of bracing
Verb
  • At the event, Musk and his team showcased a white sports car that raced up a curved ramp, then clung to it upside down and vaulted off it, flipping in mid-air and hovering slowly before landing on the ground.
    — Lora Kolodny, CNBC, 15 Oct. 2026
  • The price of Brent crude, the international standard for oil, was hovering around $105 on Wednesday, up from $98 on the last day of September.
    — Mark Osborne, CBS News, 14 Oct. 2026
Definition of hovering
Verb
  • City officials have been frantically preparing for Rachel, building sand berms and fortifying vulnerable areas with sandbags.
    — Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, 11 Oct. 2026
  • CISOs invested billions of dollars fortifying corporate inboxes with secure email gateways (SEGs), enforcing strict DMARC policies and conducting continuous phishing simulations for employees.
    — Firas Azmeh, Forbes.com, 5 Oct. 2026
Definition of fortifying
Verb
  • From shredding the slopes in the winter to floating on the water in the summer, the unofficial capital of the Sierra Nevada sees outdoorsy travelers constantly flocking to its campsites and cabins.
    — Camila Pedrosa, Sacbee.com, 15 Oct. 2026
  • To mollify the weathering forces that can twist or pull their systems apart, engineers at Ciel & Terre, a French floating solar array manufacturer, reshaped its design.
    — Sal Vaglica, Time, 15 Oct. 2026
Definition of floating
Verb
  • The city is readying itself for the future, and the renovations at the Park Hyatt Milan feel aligned with that project.
    — Condé Nast, Condé Nast Traveler, 10 Oct. 2026
  • The Pentagon is readying a new round of major combat operations targeting Iranian energy, infrastructure, and nuclear targets, Axios reported.
    — Jim Edwards, Fortune, 8 Oct. 2026
Definition of readying
Verb
  • The unfortunate crew of the doomed vessel were likely sailing to the west when disaster struck, the researchers wrote in a study about the wreck that was published earlier this year.
    — Adam Kovac, Scientific American, 15 Oct. 2026
  • The fourth ship was identified as the Al Saadiyat, sailing under the Marshall Islands flag.
    — Mark Osborne, CBS News, 14 Oct. 2026
Definition of sailing
Verb
  • It’s estimated about 25% of the sunscreen people apply to their skin washes off while swimming or wading in the ocean.
    — Matthew Perrone, Los Angeles Times, 15 Oct. 2026
  • For twenty years, McCarthy has been swimming against the current, writing novels that reflect, with unusual intensity, his disdain for the conventional underpinnings of literary fiction.
    — Max Callimanopulos, New Yorker, 14 Oct. 2026
Definition of swimming
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

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poises
poising
poison
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Cite this Entry

“Poising.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/poising. Accessed 20 Oct. 2026.

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