Word.ws English Dictionary

ebbing and flowing

ebbing and flowing is the present participle and gerund of ebb and flow.

Meaning of ebb and flow

Verb

ebb and flow (third-person singular simple present ebbs and flows, present participle ebbing and flowing, simple past and past participle ebbed and flowed)

  1. To recede and advance.
    • As true we are as flesh and blood can be: / The sea will ebb and flow, heaven show his facec. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Loues Labour’s Lost”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
  2. (figuratively) To wax and wane.
    • The quality of his service game varied as the contest ebbed and flowed, but landing 54% of his first serves over the whole match was a telling statistic.2025 June 8, Jonathan Jurejko, “Alcaraz stuns Sinner in extraordinary French Open final”, in BBC

See all 4 meanings of ebb and flow

Questions about ebbing and flowing

What is ebbing and flowing the present participle and gerund of?
Ebbing and flowing is the present participle and gerund of ebb and flow.

Words near ebbing and flowing in the dictionary

  1. ebbeth
  2. ebbets
  3. Ebbetts
  4. Ebbie
  5. ebbing
  6. ebbing and flowing
  7. Ebbinghaus
  8. Ebbinghaus illusion
  9. Ebbinghaus illusions
  10. ebbings
  11. ebbless

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ebbing and flowing (page history and authors); ebb and flow (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: “ebbing and flowing.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ebbing_and_flowing. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.