Word.ws English Dictionary

dilling

dilling is the present participle and gerund of dill.

Noun

dilling (plural dillings)

  1. (obsolete) A darling or favourite.
    • To make up the match with my eldest daughter, my wife's dilling, whom she longs to call madam.1605, George Chapman, Ben Jonson, John Marston, Eastward Hoe
    • Whilst the birds billing, / Each one with his dilling.1630, Michael Drayton, The Muses' Elizium
  2. (obsolete) The youngest child.
    Synonyms:
    baby
  3. (UK, dialectal, obsolete) The runt of a litter.

Meaning of dill

Verb (1)

dill (third-person singular simple present dills, present participle dilling, simple past and past participle dilled)

  1. To cook or flavor with dill.
    • My mother would pickle them and dill them, and we still had an abundance of fresh vegetables left.2014, Anatoly (Tony) Kandiew, Red Devils, →ISBN, page 139

Verb (2)

dill (third-person singular simple present dills, present participle dilling, simple past and past participle dilled)

  1. To still; to assuage; to calm; to soothe, as one in pain.
    • The noise of the Queen's voyage to France is dilled down ; no money for her furniture will be got in haste; and the Cardinal has no will of her mother.1775, Robert Baillie, Letters and Journals: Written by the deceased Mr. Robert Baillie, Principal of the University of Glasgow, page 252

See all 6 meanings of dill

Synonyms of dilling

Forms of dilling

pluraldillings

Origin of dilling

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

Questions about dilling

What does dilling mean?
Dilling means a darling or favourite.
What is dilling the present participle and gerund of?
Dilling is the present participle and gerund of dill.
What part of speech is dilling?
Dilling is a noun.
What is the plural of dilling?
The plural of dilling is dillings.

Words near dilling in the dictionary

  1. dillies
  2. dilliest
  3. DILLIGAFF
  4. dilligent
  5. dilligrout
  6. dilling
  7. Dillinger
  8. Dillingers
  9. Dillingham
  10. Dillinghams
  11. dillings

Source and license

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