Word.ws English Dictionary

ducking and covering

ducking and covering is the present participle and gerund of duck and cover.

Meaning of duck and cover

Verb

duck and cover (third-person singular simple present ducks and covers, present participle ducking and covering, simple past and past participle ducked and covered)

  1. (intransitive) To duck under a surface and cover one's face with one's hands, as a means to protect oneself from flying debris etc.
    • It's Christmas at ground zero / Just seconds left to go / I'll duck and cover / With my Yuletide lover / Underneath the mistletoe1986, "Weird Al" Yankovic, “Christmas at Ground Zero”, in Polka Party!

Questions about ducking and covering

What is ducking and covering the present participle and gerund of?
Ducking and covering is the present participle and gerund of duck and cover.

Words near ducking and covering in the dictionary

  1. duckies
  2. duckiest
  3. duckin'
  4. duckiness
  5. ducking
  6. ducking and covering
  7. ducking and diving
  8. ducking coat
  9. ducking coats
  10. ducking down
  11. ducking off

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ducking and covering (page history and authors); duck and cover (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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