Word.ws English Dictionary

bystanding

bystanding adjective: standing nearby; having the role of bystander.

Adjective

bystanding (not comparable)

  1. Standing nearby; having the role of bystander.

Noun

bystanding (uncountable)

  1. The state of being a bystander.
    • The woes of the world call forth the loudest outcries from the bystanders. Bystanding is not the closest possible adjustment to the universe.1932, Francis John McConnell, Aids to Christian Belief, New York, N.Y.; Cincinnati, Oh.; Chicago, Ill.: The Abingdon Press, page 108
    • Adults love to talk about the importance of bystanders in stopping social cruelty. But bystanding is really complicated, and when we encourage our children to do it we rarely think about whether we're willing and able to do it ourselves.2013, Rosalind Wiseman, Masterminds & Wingmen: Helping Our Boys Cope with Schoolyard Power, Locker-Room Tests, Girlfriends, and the New Rules of Boy World, New York, N.Y.: Harmony Books, →ISBN, page...

Origin of bystanding

From by + standing.

Questions about bystanding

What does bystanding mean?
Bystanding means standing nearby; having the role of bystander.
What part of speech is bystanding?
Bystanding can be an adjective or a noun.

Words near bystanding in the dictionary

  1. bystander effects
  2. bystanderish
  3. bystanderism
  4. bystanders
  5. bystandership
  6. bystanding
  7. bystreet
  8. bystreets
  9. bystrite
  10. Bystrom
  11. Bystroms

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bystanding (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: “bystanding.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/bystanding. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.