Word.ws English Dictionary

half-inching

half-inching is the present participle and gerund of half-inch.

Meaning of half-inch

Verb

half-inch (third-person singular simple present half-inches, present participle half-inching, simple past and past participle half-inched)

  1. (Cockney, slang, transitive) To pinch, to steal.
    • No cox'n will ever be hanged; he will always have "half-inched" the rope from the hangman first.1942 December 9, “Rope”, in Punch, page 501

Questions about half-inching

What is half-inching the present participle and gerund of?
Half-inching is the present participle and gerund of half-inch.

Words near half-inching in the dictionary

  1. half-hunters
  2. half-identical
  3. half-inch
  4. half-inched
  5. half-inches
  6. half-inching
  7. half-integer
  8. half-integers
  9. half-integral
  10. half-island
  11. half-islands

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: half-inching (page history and authors); half-inch (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:

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