Word.ws English Dictionary

coasting

coasting is the present participle and gerund of coast.

Noun

coasting (countable and uncountable, plural coastings)

  1. The act of sailing along a coast, or from port to port.
    • Glory be to God, all sublunary coastings will soon be over. Yet a little while, and we shall get into an eternal harbour.1772, A Select Collection of Letters of the Late Reverend George Whitefield, page 390
    • She had been lying quietly in the harbour and making little coasting trips ever since we arrived in her twelve months before.1887, Harriet W. Daly, Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, page 125
  2. The act of disengaging the gears of a moving vehicle and rolling along without the use of engine power.
    • Avanti West Coast has introduced the use of coasting with its Pendolino fleet, in an effort to keep disruption during overhead line equipment failures to a minimum. [...] The Class 390s coasted for three miles without power between Harrow & Wealdstone and Wembley Central, running under damaged OLE.2020 September 23, “Network News: AWC employs coasting to minimise disruption”, in Rail, page 26
  3. A progression of symptoms after treatment, before gradual improvement begins.
  4. Drinking nolo drinks so as to imbibe less alcohol while still enjoying tippling.
    • Christmas and New Year's Eve celebrations often used to result in a hangover, but with moderation now the order of the day the new drinks industry buzzword is "coasting". This involves choosing a white wine, lager or even a cocktail that is about half the strength of the traditional version —...2025 December 31, Zoe Wood, “Drinkers turn to low-alcohol beverages so they can 'coast' through season”, in The Guardian, page 3

Meaning of coast

Verb

coast (third-person singular simple present coasts, present participle coasting, simple past and past participle coasted)

  1. (intransitive) To glide along without adding energy; to allow a vehicle to continue moving forward after disengaging the engine or ceasing to apply motive power.
    • When I ran out of gas, fortunately I managed to coast into a nearby gas station.
  2. (intransitive) To sail along a coast.
    • The Ancients coasted only in their Navigations.1727, John Arbuthnot, Tables of Ancient Coins, Weights and Measures. Explain'd and exemplify'd in several dissertations
    Synonyms:
    hug the coastline
  3. (figuratively, intransitive) To make a minimal effort; to continue to do something in a routine way, without initiative or effort.
    • Yet the truth is that City would probably have been coasting by that point if the referee, Michael Oliver, had not turned down three separate penalties, at least two of which could be accurately described as certainties.2014 November 2, Daniel Taylor, “Sergio Agüero strike wins derby for Manchester City against 10-man United”, in The Guardian, archived from the original on 02 Jun 2022
  4. (intransitive, obsolete) To draw near to; to approach; to keep near, or by the side of.
    • Anon she hears them chant it lustily, / And all in haste she coasteth to the cry.1593, [William Shakespeare], Venus and Adonis, London: […] Richard Field, […], →OCLC
  5. (obsolete, transitive) To sail by or near; to follow the coastline of.
    • Nearchus, […] not knowing the compass, was fain to coast that shore.1650, Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica: […], 2nd edition, London: […] A[braham] Miller, for Edw[ard] Dod and Nath[aniel] Ekins, […], →OCLC
  6. (obsolete, transitive) To conduct along a coast or river bank.
    • The Indians […] coasted me a long the river.1589, Richard Hakluyt, The Principall Navigations, Voiages, and Discoveries of the English Nation, […], London: […] George Bishop and Ralph Newberie, deputies to Christopher Barker, […], →OCLC

See all 12 meanings of coast

Forms of coasting

pluralcoastings

Words formed from coasting

Phrases with coasting

Questions about coasting

What does coasting mean?
Coasting means the act of sailing along a coast, or from port to port.
What is coasting the present participle and gerund of?
Coasting is the present participle and gerund of coast.
What part of speech is coasting?
Coasting is a noun.
What is the plural of coasting?
The plural of coasting is coastings.

Words near coasting in the dictionary

  1. coastguardswoman
  2. coastguardswomen
  3. coastie
  4. coasties
  5. coasties week
  6. coasting
  7. coasting trade
  8. coasting trades
  9. coasting vessel
  10. coasting vessels
  11. coastings

Source and license

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