What does incensing mean?
Incensing is the present participle of the verb incense, and in ordinary modern English it usually means making someone extremely angry. A speaker whose remarks are incensing a crowd is provoking indignation, fury, or an aggressive response. The word has a second, more literary or ceremonial sense: perfuming an area with burning incense. This older meaning is connected to the word’s history as a term for a burnt offering, and the related figurative development from fire or burning to emotional inflammation is why anger is now the dominant sense. Although incensing may sound grand or old-fashioned, it remains idiomatic in formal reporting and political discussion, where it can efficiently describe language that profoundly irritates an audience. It is especially memorable because the same form can refer to the emotionally fiery effect of words or to the literal fragrance of ritual smoke.
verbIncensing means making someone very angry or, less commonly, perfuming a space with incense.
- To make someone extremely angry.
- To fill or perfume a space with incense.
"The senator's remarks were incensing the crowd, who responded with angry shouts."
"His inflammatory speech was incensing the protesters."
"The officiant spent several minutes incensing the temple before the ceremony."
Incensing can make an audience furious—or perfume a temple with fragrant smoke.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Where does incensing come from?
Incensing ultimately comes from Latin incendere, “to set on fire” or “burn,” through Old French incense and Middle English incense. Its older sense of perfuming with a burnt substance developed from the idea of an incense offering, while the modern sense of enraging developed through the metaphor of inflammatory speech and feeling inflamed with anger. The Latin root also underlies forms such as incendiary and incensation.
Related word forms
How incensing is actually used
The sense meaning 'making angry' is dominant in modern English. The ceremonial or literary sense of perfuming with incense is less common and often evokes religious or formal contexts.