frisking

/ˈfɹɪskɪŋ/

frisking is the present participle and gerund of frisk.

Noun

frisking (plural friskings)

The act or an instance of checking someone's clothes and body for weapons or contraband.

Synonyms:

frisk, patdown
The action or motion of one who frisks; a gambol.
- They are no longer to be amused according to custom, as a mob with the cant of a mountebank, and the leapings, friskings, gambols, and stale jests of tumblers and clowns.1809, Eaton Stannard Barrett, The setting sun

frisk (third-person singular simple present frisks, present participle frisking, simple past and past participle frisked)

(intransitive) To frolic, gambol, skip, dance, leap.
(transitive) To search (someone) by feeling their body and clothing.
- The police frisked the suspiciously-acting individual and found a knife as well as a bag of marijuana.
(transitive) To search (a place).
- Furniture was tipped over and drawers pulled out. Someone had obviously frisked the joint before we arrived.

plural	friskings

What does frisking mean?: Frisking means the act or an instance of checking someone's clothes and body for weapons or contraband.
What is frisking the present participle and gerund of?: Frisking is the present participle and gerund of frisk.
What part of speech is frisking?: Frisking is a noun.
How do you pronounce frisking?: Frisking is pronounced /ˈfɹɪskɪŋ/.
What is the plural of frisking?: The plural of frisking is friskings.

Adapted from Wiktionary: frisking (page history and authors); frisk (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.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

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