Interesting means holding your attention so that you want to know more. An interesting book, that is interesting, an interesting question.
It is the standard -ing adjective and its partner is interested: the thing is interesting, the person is interested. Getting those the wrong way round — I am very interesting in football — is one of the most common learner errors in English, and the rule covers a whole family: boring and bored, exciting and excited, tiring and tired. Note also that interesting is often used as a polite evasion: how interesting can mean anything at all, and the tone decides.
1adjectiveinterestingHolding your attention and making you want to know more.~91%
“It was an interesting talk and rather too long.”
synonyms: absorbing, engaging, fascinating
2adjectivepolitelyUsed politely to avoid saying what you actually think.~9%
“That is an interesting choice of colour.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 11 sentences found in the wild and placed 11 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
interesting is a quality of holding attention.
Proto-Indo-European
*h₁es-
Latin
intersum
Medieval Latin
intersum
Old French
interesse
Middle English
interest
English
interest
English, today
interesting
From interest + -ing. interest comes from Middle English interest, from Old French interesse and interest (French intérêt), from Medieval Latin intersum, from Latin intersum.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA