Other forms: hearteningly
Something heartening reassures or inspires you. You'll feel better after struggling with a long English essay when you read your teacher's heartening comments.
If you're halfway through a marathon, the sight of your friends cheering you on is heartening. A shy new student will also find the warm welcome he gets from his classmates to be extremely heartening. This cheerful adjective comes from the verb hearten. "give confidence," or "encourage," which is rooted in a figurative sense of heart — to "give heart to" means "to give confidence to."