Word.ws English Dictionary

doughnutting

doughnutting noun: a method of fare evasion by buying tickets only covering the beginning and the end of a journey. Also the present participle and gerund of doughnut.

Noun

doughnutting (uncountable)

  1. (UK) A method of fare evasion by buying tickets only covering the beginning and the end of a journey.
    • Particular considerations apply to circumstances such as doughnutting when fare elements do not correspond to controllable elements, so there arises the opportunity for fare evasion.2006, Carl Bro Group Ltd, FareXChange Scoping Study Final Report v1.0, section 8.6.1, Department for Transport, http://naptan.dft.gov.uk/transxchange/farexchange/FareXChange%20Scoping%20Study%20Final%...
    • The post before you (rightly) says that overriding season tickets is a regular fare con, as is doughnutting (having tickets for the start and the end of the journey with a gap - often large - in the middle), the latter exposes the limitations of ticket gates.....2012, WickedWolfie, reply to South West Trains. Liars? Thieves? Generally unhelpful., MoneySavingExpert Forum, https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/57775841/#Comment_57775841
    Synonyms:
    dumbbelling

Also used as

doughnutting is also the present participle and gerund of doughnut.

Synonyms of doughnutting

  • dumbbelling

Origin of doughnutting

From doughnut. When this method of fare evasion is used on the London Underground, the area covered by the ticket looks like a doughnut, with a hole in the middle.

Questions about doughnutting

What does doughnutting mean?
Doughnutting means a method of fare evasion by buying tickets only covering the beginning and the end of a journey.
What part of speech is doughnutting?
Doughnutting is a noun.

Words near doughnutting in the dictionary

  1. doughnutlike
  2. doughnuts
  3. doughnutted
  4. doughnutteries
  5. doughnuttery
  6. doughnutting
  7. doughnutty
  8. doughs
  9. dought
  10. Doughtie
  11. doughtier

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: doughnutting (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: “doughnutting.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/doughnutting. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.