Word.ws English Dictionary

hiving

/ˈhaɪvɪŋ/

hiving is the present participle and gerund of hive.

Meaning of hive

Verb

hive (third-person singular simple present hives, present participle hiving, simple past and past participle hived)

  1. (transitive) To collect (bees) into a hive.
    • to hive a swarm of bees
  2. (transitive) To store (something other than bees) in, or as if in, a hive.
    • Hiving wisdom with each studious year.1816, Lord Byron, “Canto III”, in Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. Canto the Third, London: […] [F]or John Murray, […], →OCLC, (please specify the stanza number)
  3. (intransitive) To form a hive-like entity.
  4. (intransitive) To take lodging or shelter together; to reside in a collective body.
    • The patch is kind enough, but a huge feeder, / Snail-slow in profit, and he sleeps by day / More than the wild-cat; drones hive not with me; / Therefore I part with him; and part with him / To one what I would have him help to waste / His borrowed purse. […]c. 1596–1598 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
  5. Of insects: to enter or possess a hive.

See all 10 meanings of hive

Noun

hiving (countable and uncountable, plural hivings)

  1. The process by which something is hived; separation and storage.
    • There are districts of Canada mainly settled from Paisley and neighbourhood, the hivings off at such seasons as we have referred to, with whose settlement he had not a little to do, and where his memory is embalmed.1872, Robert Ferrier Burns, The Life and Times of the Rev. Robert Burns, page 95

Forms of hiving

pluralhivings

Phrases with hiving

Questions about hiving

What does hiving mean?
Hiving means the process by which something is hived; separation and storage.
What is hiving the present participle and gerund of?
Hiving is the present participle and gerund of hive.
What part of speech is hiving?
Hiving is a noun.
How do you pronounce hiving?
Hiving is pronounced /ˈhaɪvɪŋ/.
What is the plural of hiving?
The plural of hiving is hivings.

Words near hiving in the dictionary

  1. hives off
  2. hives up
  3. hiveward
  4. hivewards
  5. hivey
  6. hiving
  7. hiving off
  8. hiving up
  9. hivings
  10. Hivite
  11. Hivites

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: hiving (page history and authors); hive (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: “hiving.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/hiving. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.