commuting

commuting is the present participle and gerund of commute.

Noun

commuting (usually uncountable, plural commutings)

(usually) travel between home and workplace
- The poet Geoffrey Grigson added an atmospheric 1950s gloss on these bizarre commutings [of seeds]: 'between Swindon and London you may see them often enough during the summer, the sunlight through the carriage window catching them as they float about in the thin smoke of cigarettes'.2010, Richard Mabey, Weeds: The Story of Outlaw Plants, page 140
- It was cheaper to build both railways and suburbs to the south, and commuting - which Charles Pearson called 'oscillating' - began between the village of Greenwich and London Bridge. (The term 'commuting' is from America, and did not become established in Britain until the 1940s).2012, Andrew Martin, Underground Overground: A passenger's history of the Tube, Profile Books, →ISBN, pages 12–13
(Philippines, usually) travel by public transportation such as by jeepney

commute (third-person singular simple present commutes, present participle commuting, simple past and past participle commuted)

To exchange substantially; to abate but not abolish completely, a penalty, obligation, or payment in return for a great, single thing or an aggregate; to cash in; to lessen
- to commute tithes into rentcharges for a sum
1. (transitive) To pay, or arrange to pay, in advance, in a lump sum instead of part by part.
  - to commute the daily toll for a year's pass
2. (transitive) To reduce the sentence previously given for a criminal offense.
  - His prison sentence was commuted to probation.
3. (transitive, pensions) To pay out the lumpsum present value of an annuity, instead of paying in instalments; to cash in; to encash
4. (intransitive, obsolete) To obtain or bargain for exemption or substitution;
  - He […] thinks it unlawful to commute, and that he is bound to pay his vow in kind.1660, Jeremy Taylor, Ductor Dubitantium, or the Rule of Conscience in All Her General Measures; […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: […] James Flesher, for Richard Royston […], →OCLC
(intransitive) Of an operation, to be commutative, i.e. to have the property that changing the order of the operands does not change the result.
- A pair of matrices share the same set of eigenvectors if and only if they commute.

commuting (not comparable)

plural	commutings

What does commuting mean?: Commuting means travel between home and workplace.
What is commuting the present participle and gerund of?: Commuting is the present participle and gerund of commute.
What part of speech is commuting?: Commuting can be a noun or an adjective.
What is the plural of commuting?: The plural of commuting is commutings.

Adapted from Wiktionary: commuting (page history and authors); commute (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

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