caulking
caulking is the present participle and gerund of caulk.
Noun
caulking (usually uncountable, plural caulkings)
- A sealing material used to seal joints between heterogeneous materials in many kinds of construction and manufacture.
- Oakum was used for the caulking of the hulls of wooden ships.
- Marina's bedroom was a small charming room with small charming windows of aged glass, dating to the mid-1800s, windowpanes badly in need of caulking, overlooking St. Agnes Roman Catholic Church with its heraldic spire floating on the night sky, and its ancient bumpy churchyard.2001, Middle Age: A Romance, Joyce Carol Oates (Fourth Estate, paperback edition, 17)
- An act/process of sealing using this material.
Meaning of caulk
Verb
caulk (third-person singular simple present caulks, present participle caulking, simple past and past participle caulked)
- To drive oakum into the seams of a ship's wooden deck or hull to make it watertight.
- [W]e might be disturbed during the night by an order being given to "go about," and by hearing in the quiet hours of the morning the familiar inquiry of "How's her head?" Mine often ached with the din of the men caulking all day long!1887, Harriet W. Daly, Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, page 112
- To apply caulking to joints, cracks, or a juncture of different materials.
- To copulate.
- To take a short sleep; to nap.
- There was the goggle-eyed daughter a blowing the Grampus [throwing a bucket of water upon a person] with the platter-faced planter, whenever he caulked upon deck; […]1829, William Nugent Glascock, Sailors and Saints: Or Matrimonial Manœvres, page 179
Synonyms of caulking
Forms of caulking
| plural | caulkings |
|---|
Words formed from caulking
Phrases with caulking
Questions about caulking
- What does caulking mean?
- Caulking means a sealing material used to seal joints between heterogeneous materials in many kinds of construction and manufacture.
- What is caulking the present participle and gerund of?
- Caulking is the present participle and gerund of caulk.
- What part of speech is caulking?
- Caulking is a noun.
- What is the plural of caulking?
- The plural of caulking is caulkings.
Words near caulking in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: caulking (page history and authors); caulk (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: “caulking.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/caulking. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.