Word.ws English Dictionary

-ing

/ɪŋ/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

Australia/ɪŋk/

-ing suffix: as true nouns.

Suffix (1)

-ing

  1. As true nouns.
    • My hearing is not good.
    • I have had several meetings with him.
  2. As gerunds.
    • Smoking marijuana cigarettes daily is bad for your health.
    • She has a habit of sleeping late.
  3. Used to form nouns denoting materials or systems of objects which are used or employed in an action, or considered collectively.
    • Roofing is material that is used to roof.
    • Clothing is material with which one is clothed.

Suffix (2)

-ing

  1. Used to form present participles of verbs.
    • Rolling stones gather no moss.
    • My new cabin, which is going to look over the lake, is getting a brand new roof this winter.

Suffix (3)

-ing

  1. (idiomatic) Forming derivative nouns (originally masculine), with the sense ‘son of, belonging to’, as in placenames, patronymics or diminutives; -ite.
    • Ealing, Dorking, Reading, Worthing
    • Browning, Channing, Ewing
  2. Forming nouns having a specified quality, characteristic, or nature; of the kind of
    • sweet + -ing → sweeting
    • white + -ing → whiting

-ing meaning in Malay, Persian and Thai

-ing in Malay

to form gerunds
peng--an

-ing in Persian

to form gerunds
ـش

-ing in Thai

to form present participles
กำลัง gam-lang

Synonyms of -ing

Forms of -ing

alternative form (colloquial)-in'
alternative form (colloquial)-in
alternative form (nonstandard, rare)-ïng

Origin of -ing

Inherited from Middle English -ing, -yng, -ynge, from Old English -ing, -ung (“-ing”, suffix forming nouns from verbs), from Proto-West Germanic *-ingu, *-ungu, from Proto-Germanic *-ingō, *-ungō (“-ing”). Cognates Cognate with Scots -in, -in', -ing (“-ing”), Yola -een (“-ing”), Saterland Frisian -enge (“-ing”), Dutch -ing (“-ing”), German and Luxembourgish -ung (“-ing”), Danish -ing, -ning (“-ing”), Icelandic, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish -ing (“-ing”), French -ange (“-ing”). Unrelated to Brahui -اِنْگ (-iṅg, “a suffix used to form infinitive or verbal noun from the base verb; -ing”).

From Middle English -inge, -ynge, alteration of earlier -inde, -ende, -and (see -and), from Old English -ende (present participle ending), from Proto-West Germanic *-andī, from Proto-Germanic *-andz (present participle ending), from Proto-Indo-European *-onts. Cognate with West Frisian -end, Dutch -end, Afrikaans -ende, German -end, Low German -end, Danish -ende, Swedish -ande, Icelandic -andi, Gothic -𐌰𐌽𐌳𐍃 (-ands), -𐍉𐌽𐌳𐍃 (-ōnds), Latin -ans, -ant-, Ancient Greek -ων (-ōn), Sanskrit -अन्त् (-ant), Persian ـنده (-ande), Polish -ący, -ąc, Czech -oucí, Ukrainian -учий (-učyj), Serbo-Croatian -ući/-ући. More at -and.

From Middle English -ynge, from Old English -ing, from Proto-West Germanic *-ing, from Proto-Germanic *-ingaz. Akin to Old Norse -ingr.

Words formed from -ing

Phrases with -ing

Questions about -ing

What does -ing mean?
-ing means as true nouns.
What is -ing in Malay?
-ing in Malay is peng--an. See -ing meaning in Malay.
What part of speech is -ing?
-ing is a suffix.
How do you pronounce -ing?
-ing is pronounced /ɪŋ/.

Words near -ing in the dictionary

  1. -in-waiting
  2. -ina
  3. -inator
  4. -inda
  5. -ine
  6. -ing
  7. -ing-form
  8. -ing-forms
  9. -ino
  10. -ins
  11. -iod-

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: -ing (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl--ing.wav, En-us--ing.oga.

Cite this entry: “-ing.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/-ing. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.