Word.ws English Dictionary

marring

marring is the present participle and gerund of mar.

Meaning of mar

Verb

mar (third-person singular simple present mars, present participle marring, simple past and past participle marred)

  1. (transitive) To spoil; to ruin; to scathe; to damage.
    • […] and putteth ether many a good mā by ignorance in ieopardy of his life, or marreth good medicines to the great diſhoneſtie both of the Phiſician and of Goddes worthy creatures, the herbes and medecines:1551, William Turner, “Prologe”, in A new Herball, etc., folio Aiiii

See all 4 meanings of mar

Noun

marring (plural marrings)

  1. Something that mars or spoils; a blemish.
    • Unable to read even as much of them as the scamps who wrote them and could read nothing more, the smuggler had finally trained himself to ignore them; they were marrings to be overlooked while the eye was out for other, more meaningful detail.1985, Samuel R. Delany, Flight from Nevèrÿon

Forms of marring

pluralmarrings

Origin of marring

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

From mar + -ing.

Questions about marring

What does marring mean?
Marring means something that mars or spoils; a blemish.
What is marring the present participle and gerund of?
Marring is the present participle and gerund of mar.
What part of speech is marring?
Marring is a noun.
What is the plural of marring?
The plural of marring is marrings.

Words near marring in the dictionary

  1. marriest
  2. marrieth
  3. Marrin
  4. Marriner
  5. Marriners
  6. marring
  7. marrings
  8. Marriott
  9. Marriotts
  10. Marris
  11. Marrises

Source and license

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