billowing

billowing is the present participle and gerund of billow.

Meaning of billow

billow (third-person singular simple present billows, present participle billowing, simple past and past participle billowed)

To surge or roll in billows.
- During the preceding afternoon a heavy North Pacific fog had blown in … Scudding eastward from the ocean, it had crept up and over the redwood-studded crests of the Coast Range mountains, […], billowing steadily eastward, it had rolled up the western slopes of the Siskiyou Range, […]1920, Peter B. Kyne, chapter 2, in The Understanding Heart
To swell out or bulge.
- Her new green flowered-muslin dress spread its twelve yards of billowing material over her hoops and exactly matched the flat-heeled green morocco slippers her father had recently brought her from Atlanta.1936 June 30, Margaret Mitchell, chapter I, in Gone with the Wind, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, →OCLC

billowing (plural billowings)

The act of something that billows; a billow.
- The Bible is full of passages designed to meet and relieve those billowings and heavings of the soul, but without a devotional spirit such passages can never be appreciated or comprehended.1839, Western Literary Institute and College of Professional Teachers, Transactions, volume 8, page 59

plural	billowings

What does billowing mean?: Billowing means the act of something that billows; a billow.
What is billowing the present participle and gerund of?: Billowing is the present participle and gerund of billow.
What part of speech is billowing?: Billowing is a noun.
What is the plural of billowing?: The plural of billowing is billowings.

Adapted from Wiktionary: billowing (page history and authors); billow (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: 2026-09-02

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