Word.ws English Dictionary

absenting

absenting is the present participle and gerund of absent.

Meaning of absent

Verb

absent (third-person singular simple present absents, present participle absenting, simple past and past participle absented)

  1. (reflexive) To keep (oneself) away.
    • Most of the men are retired, jobless, or have otherwise temporarily absented themselves from the workplace.
  2. (archaic, transitive) To keep (someone) away.
    • Go; for thy stay, not free, absents thee more;1667, John Milton, “Book IX”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished...
  3. (intransitive, obsolete) Stay away; withdraw.
    • The iron rule of the plantation, always passionately and violently enforced in that neighborhood, makes flogging the penalty of failing to be in the field before sunrise in the morning, unless special permission be given to the absenting slave.1855, Frederick Douglass, My Bondage and My Freedom. […], New York; Auburn, N.Y.: Miller, Orton & Mulligan […], →OCLC
  4. (rare, transitive) Leave.
  5. (rare, transitive) To omit.
    • When we realize that the digitalisation of the image involves - by reducing and even absenting - the role of 'the physical', the 'sensuous' (by reducing and eventually absenting the indexical aspects of the image) […]2004, Paul Willemen, “Reflections on Eisenstein and Digital Imagery: Of Mice and Men”, in The Montage Principle, page 188

See all 11 meanings of absent

Questions about absenting

What is absenting the present participle and gerund of?
Absenting is the present participle and gerund of absent.

Words near absenting in the dictionary

  1. absenteth
  2. absentia
  3. absentia epileptica
  4. absential
  5. absentiality
  6. absenting
  7. absently
  8. absentment
  9. absentminded
  10. absentminded professor
  11. absentminded professors

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: absenting (page history and authors); absent (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.

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