fourthing
fourthing is the present participle and gerund of fourth.
fourthing is the alternative form of farthing.
Meaning of fourth
Verb
fourth (third-person singular simple present fourths, present participle fourthing, simple past and past participle fourthed)
- To agree with a proposition or statement after it has already been thirded.
- If he remembered rightly what took place in the House on the first night of the session, the Attorney General would have to file an information, not only against the noble Lord who proposed the address, and the hon. Member for London who seconded it, but also against the hon. Member who thirded...1830 March 2, Hansard’s Parliamentary Debates, volume XXII, London, page 1189
Meaning of farthing
Noun
farthing (plural farthings)
- A quarter of any monetary unit or measure.
- Former British unit of currency worth one-quarter of an old penny; or a coin representing this.
- "Nay, Heaven forbid, indeed," quoth Robin, "that I should take from such as thee, jolly fellow! Not so much as one farthing would I take from thee, for I love a fair Saxon face like thine right well—more especially when it cometh from Locksley Town, and most especially when the man that owneth it...1883, Howard Pyle, chapter V, in The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood […], New York, N.Y.: […] Charles Scribner’s Sons […], →OCLC
- A very small quantity or value; the least possible amount.
- That period of infatuation was not unrelieved by a certain amount of self-introspection on my part. I kept account of every farthing I spent, and my expenses were carefully calculated. Every little item such as omnibus fares or postage or a couple of coppers spent on newspapers, would be entered...1927-29, M.K. Gandhi, The Story of My Experiments with Truth, translated 1940 by Mahadev Desai, Part I, Chapter xvi
- A division of land.
Forms of fourthing
| plural | fourthings |
|---|
Origin of fourthing
See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.
Questions about fourthing
- What is fourthing the present participle and gerund of?
- Fourthing is the present participle and gerund of fourth.
Words near fourthing in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: fourthing (page history and authors); fourth (page history and authors); farthing (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: “fourthing.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/fourthing. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.