Word.ws English Dictionary

honeying

honeying is the present participle and gerund of honey.

Meaning of honey

Verb

honey (third-person singular simple present honeys, present participle honeying, simple past and past participle honeyed)

  1. (transitive) To sweeten; to make agreeable.
  2. (transitive) To add honey to.
  3. (intransitive) To be gentle, agreeable, or coaxing; to talk fondly; to use endearments.
    • Honeying and making love.c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac...
  4. (intransitive) To be or become obsequiously courteous or complimentary; to fawn.
    • [O]ne / Discuss'd his tutor, rough to common men / But honeying at the whisper of a lord; / And one the Master, as a rogue in grain / Veneer'd with sanctimonious theory.1847, Alfred Tennyson, “Prologue”, in The Princess: A Medley, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 6

See all 17 meanings of honey

Phrases with honeying

Questions about honeying

What is honeying the present participle and gerund of?
Honeying is the present participle and gerund of honey.

Words near honeying in the dictionary

  1. honeygirls
  2. honeyguide
  3. honeyguides
  4. honeyhole
  5. honeyholes
  6. honeying
  7. honeying around
  8. honeying up
  9. honeyish
  10. honeyless
  11. honeylike

Source and license

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