Word.ws English Dictionary

dusting

/ˈdʌstɪŋ/

dusting is the present participle and gerund of dust.

Noun

dusting (countable and uncountable, plural dustings)

  1. (countable) A light snowfall.
    • The rooves are covered with a dusting of snow.
  2. (countable) A light covering of something.
    • Cover the cake with a dusting of confectioner's sugar.
  3. The act of removing dust from the furniture, as a household chore.
    • Tuesday is the day when I do the dusting.
    • Strict orders had been given by Mrs. Breen the night before that certain dustings and arrangings of furniture should take place, the spacious stairs swept, and the hectic hired palms in their great china pots watered.1908, Francis Hopkinson Smith, Peter: A Novel of Which He Is Not the Hero
  4. (colloquial, countable) A beating.
  5. A maintenance or comfort behaviour in which a bird flushes fine dirt through the feathers; dustbathing.

Meaning of dust

Verb

dust (third-person singular simple present dusts, present participle dusting, simple past and past participle dusted)

  1. (transitive) To remove dust from.
    • The cleaning lady needs a stool to dust the cupboard.
  2. (intransitive) To remove dust; to clean by removing dust.
    • Dusting always makes me cough.
  3. (archaic, transitive) To make dusty, to soil with dust.
  4. (intransitive, reflexive) Of a bird, to cover itself in sand or dry, dusty earth.
  5. (transitive) To spray or cover (something) with fine powder or liquid, to sprinkle.
    • The mother dusted her baby’s bum with talcum powder.
  6. (transitive) To sprinkle (a substance) in the form of dust.

See all 36 meanings of dust

Forms of dusting

pluraldustings

Phrases with dusting

Words that rhyme with dusting

Questions about dusting

What does dusting mean?
Dusting means a light snowfall.
What is dusting the present participle and gerund of?
Dusting is the present participle and gerund of dust.
What part of speech is dusting?
Dusting is a noun.
How do you pronounce dusting?
Dusting is pronounced /ˈdʌstɪŋ/.
What is the plural of dusting?
The plural of dusting is dustings.

Words near dusting in the dictionary

  1. dustily
  2. Dustin
  3. Dustin Acres
  4. dustin'
  5. dustiness
  6. dusting
  7. dusting down
  8. dusting off
  9. dusting off a batter
  10. dusting off the cobwebs
  11. dusting out

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: dusting (page history and authors); dust (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-dusting.wav.

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