ceasing

/ˈsiːsɪŋ/

ceasing is the present participle and gerund of cease.

Meaning of cease

cease (third-person singular simple present ceases, present participle ceasing, simple past and past participle ceased)

(formal, intransitive) To stop.
- And with that, his twitching ceased.
Synonyms:

discontinue, hold, terminate, absolve, complete, conclude, consummate, do, end, finalize
(formal, transitive) To stop doing (something).
- And with that, he ceased twitching.
Synonyms:

arrest, discontinue, absist, belay, blin, break off, cess, cheese it, come to an end, desist
(intransitive, obsolete) To be wanting; to fail; to pass away, perish.
- The poor shall never cease out of the land.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Deuteronomy 15:11
Synonyms:

desert, lack

ceasing (plural ceasings)

A cessation.
- If one can discern the arising and ceasing of the four elements innumerable times in one day alone, the changes, arisings, and ceasings of the derivative material qualities are also discerned.2017, Ven Ledi Sayadaw, The Manual of Insight and the Noble Eightfold Path and Its Factors Explained

plural	ceasings

What does ceasing mean?: Ceasing means a cessation.
What is ceasing the present participle and gerund of?: Ceasing is the present participle and gerund of cease.
What part of speech is ceasing?: Ceasing is a noun.
How do you pronounce ceasing?: Ceasing is pronounced /ˈsiːsɪŋ/.
What is the plural of ceasing?: The plural of ceasing is ceasings.

Adapted from Wiktionary: ceasing (page history and authors); cease (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

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