affecting

The word “affecting” means causing strong emotion, especially sadness or sympathy. In plain terms, something that stirs your emotions, often moving you to sympathy or sadness.

“Affecting” is pronounced uh-FEHK-tihng (/əˈfɛktɪŋ/ in IPA).

Here is “affecting” used in a sentence: “The documentary included some deeply affecting interviews with survivors.”

“Affecting” is an adjective.

“Affecting” is a fairly common word in modern English.

Affecting is usually an adjective meaning that something stirs strong emotion, especially sadness or sympathy, as in 'a deeply affecting film.' Effecting is the present participle of the verb effect, meaning to bring something about, as in 'effecting change.' If you could replace the word with 'moving,' affecting is the one you want.

Affecting describes something that produces strong emotion in other people, such as an affecting story. Affected either means influenced by something ('the affected areas') or describes behavior that is artificial and put on to impress ('an affected accent'). Only affecting reliably signals that the audience was moved.

Affecting sits at the formal, literary end of the scale and is most common in reviews and written descriptions of books, films, and performances. In everyday conversation, speakers usually choose moving, touching, or sad instead. It very often appears in the collocation 'deeply affecting.'

The two adjectives overlap heavily, and in most sentences either will work. Affecting leans more literary and tends to suggest sadness or sympathy in particular, while moving covers any strong emotional response, including uplifting ones. Moving is far more frequent in speech; affecting is largely confined to writing.