disarming

adjectiveC1Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #10,511 of 15,258neutral

Disarming means so charming that it takes away any wish to be hostile. You arrived ready to complain and now you cannot.

The image is exact, since somebody disarming has removed your weapons without you noticing. It describes smiles, honesty and frankness, and disarming honesty is the most common phrase, because admitting a fault immediately is the fastest way to defuse a criticism. The verb disarm has a literal military sense about removing weapons, and disarmament is the international version of the same thing.

Definitions of disarming

1adjectivedisarmingCharming in a way that removes hostility or suspicion.C1
“He apologised with disarming honesty.”

Where it comes from

Anglo-Norman
desarmer
Middle English
desarmen — to divest of arms
English
disarm
English, today
disarming

disarm comes from Middle English desarmen (“to divest of arms”), from Anglo-Norman desarmer.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Man Called Ove

First appears in chapter 3 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

disarming in the wild

The sai is primarily used for striking, parrying and disarming opponents.
Sai (weapon)
The Lusaka Protocol, initialed in Lusaka, Zambia on 31 October 1994, attempted to end the Angolan Civil War by integrating and disarming UNITA and starting national reconciliation.
Lusaka Protocol
According to other sources, the victims were 17 Bengali officers and 915 men (all Muslims), killed during their disarming on the orders of Lt.
Comilla Cantonment massacre

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

the desarmer family

disarm disarming

disarming — used about once every 6,499 pages · #10,511 · point at the bar for the others

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