Word.ws English Dictionary

closing in

closing in is the present participle and gerund of close in.

Meaning of close in

Verb

close in (third-person singular simple present closes in, present participle closing in, simple past and past participle closed in)

  1. (transitive) To enclose, lock up inside something.
  2. (intransitive) To come or approach nearer to someone being pursued.
    • The police had not yet caught the thieves, but were closing in.
  3. To become closer, surround.
    • Then we pass through Bebington station, and, entering a cutting, become aware of the usual signs of approach to an urban area—buildings closing in, an all-round increase in smokiness, and the application of brakes.1955 January, R. S. McNaught, “From the Severn to the Mersey by Great Western”, in Railway Magazine, page 21

Questions about closing in

What is closing in the present participle and gerund of?
Closing in is the present participle and gerund of close in.

Words near closing in in the dictionary

  1. closing down
  2. closing for press
  3. closing form
  4. closing forms
  5. Closing Government
  6. closing in
  7. closing in on
  8. closing in upon
  9. closing off
  10. closing one eye
  11. closing one's doors

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: closing in (page history and authors); close in (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: “closing in.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/closing_in. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.