Word.ws English Dictionary

fighting

UK/ˈfaɪ.tɪŋ//ˈfaɪ.tɪŋ/

fighting adjective: engaged in war or other conflict. Also the present participle and gerund of fight.

Adjective

fighting

  1. Engaged in war or other conflict.
  2. Apt to provoke a fight.
    • It seems like a fighting insult, but he explains.1925 April 11, "Books", in The New Yorker, page 26
    • Them's fighting words in my country!1947, Hold That Lion! (film)

Noun

fighting (countable and uncountable, plural fightings)

  1. The act or process of contending; violence or conflict.
  2. A fight or battle; an occasion on which people fight
    • Then here the warres end, here our fightings marde, Yet by your leave Ile stand upon my Guard.1613, “The Costlie Whore”, in A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV.
    • Seid had fallen in the War of Tabuc, the first of Mahomet's fightings with the Greeks.1840, Thomas Carlyle, On Heroes and Hero Worship and the Heroic in History

Also used as

fighting is also the present participle and gerund of fight.

fighting meaning in Tamil, Bengali, Kannada and Arabic

fighting in Tamil

சண்டையிடுவது, சண்டையிடுதல்

fighting in Bengali

লড়াই করে

fighting in Kannada

ಹೋರಾಡುತ್ತಿದ್ದಾರೆ

fighting in Arabic

the act or process of contending; violence or conflict
صِرَاع ṣirāʕ

Examples of fighting in a sentence

  • Those are fighting words, of course, and the people who presently hold the high ground of economic power in society will not be amused.2003, Marjorie Kelly, The Divine Right of Capital: Dethroning the Corporate Aristocracy, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, →ISBN, page xi:
  • A good many soldiers, and some officers, were present; but the expression of our dissent from all wars and fightings had not displeased them, for they shook hands with US most kindly.1860, John Yeardley, Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel:

All 40 example sentences with fighting

Forms of fighting

pluralfightings

Origin of fighting

From Middle English feghtyng, fyȝtynge, fightand, feghtand, feghtande, feightand, feȝtand, viȝtinde, feihtende, from Old English feohtende, from Proto-Germanic *fehtandz, present participle of Proto-Germanic *fehtaną (“to comb, struggle, contend with”), equivalent to fight + -ing.

From Middle English fightyng, fightynge, fiȝtinge, feȝtyng, from Old English fihtung (“fighting”), equivalent to fight + -ing.

Words formed from fighting

Phrases with fighting

34 more phrasesFewer phrases

Questions about fighting

What does fighting mean?
Fighting means engaged in war or other conflict.
What is fighting in Tamil?
Fighting in Tamil is சண்டையிடுவது, சண்டையிடுதல். See Fighting meaning in Tamil.
How do you use fighting in a sentence?
Those are fighting words, of course, and the people who presently hold the high ground of economic power in society will not be amused.
What part of speech is fighting?
Fighting can be an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce fighting?
Fighting is pronounced /ˈfaɪ.tɪŋ/ (UK).

Words near fighting in the dictionary

  1. fighters
  2. fightest
  3. fighteth
  4. fightiest
  5. fightin'
  6. fighting
  7. fighting a losing battle
  8. fighting a rearguard action
  9. fighting back
  10. Fighting Bob
  11. fighting chair

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: fighting (page history and authors); fighting (Tamil, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); fighting (Bengali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); fighting (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-fighting.ogg.

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