Word.ws English Dictionary

a- -ing

UK/ə- -ɪŋ/

a- -ing circumfix: used to form present participles and verbal nouns; and, (dialectal) circumfixed to words which function as part of a verb phrase (e.g. “he went a-hunting”).

Circumfix

a- -ing

  1. (archaic) Used to form present participles and verbal nouns; and, (dialectal) circumfixed to words which function as part of a verb phrase (e.g. “he went a-hunting”)
    • Bye, baby Bunting, / Father's gone a-hunting, / Mother's gone a-milking, / Sister's gone a-silking, / Brother's gone to buy a skin / To wrap the baby Bunting in.1951, I. Opie, P. Opie, The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes, 2nd edition, Oxford University Press, published 1997, page 63

Origin of a- -ing

The a is a reduced form of the preposition on, which was used in Old English with nouns indicating actions or states (e.g. iċ wæs on huntoþe, “I was hunting”). This is the source of such words as asleep and alive, which also show reduction of on to a. In the Middle English period, the preposition came to be used with the present participles of verbs as well (formed in -ing), eventually coming to be perceived as a mere prefix.

Questions about a- -ing

What does a- -ing mean?
A- -ing means used to form present participles and verbal nouns; and, (dialectal) circumfixed to words which function as part of a verb phrase (e.g. “he went a-hunting”).
What part of speech is a- -ing?
A- -ing is a circumfix.
How do you pronounce a- -ing?
A- -ing is pronounced /ə- -ɪŋ/ (UK).

Words near a- -ing in the dictionary

  1. A+
  2. A+'s
  3. A++
  4. A++s
  5. a-
  6. a- -ing
  7. A-1
  8. A-106
  9. A-106s
  10. A-109
  11. A-109s

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: a- -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:

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