Word.ws English Dictionary

mitching

mitching is the present participle and gerund of mitch.

Noun

mitching (uncountable)

  1. (UK, dialectal) Pilfering; skulking.
  2. (Ireland, UK, regional) Playing truant.
    • As soon as she was out of the front gate, my father would say, ‘Come along, son: let's go mitchin'!’ and we'd go out to the shed at the back [...].1974, GB Edwards, The Book of Ebenezer Le Page, New York, published 2007, page 6
  3. (UK, dialectal) A pretense of poverty.

Meaning of mitch

Verb

mitch (third-person singular simple present mitches, present participle mitching, simple past and past participle mitched)

  1. (dialectal, transitive) To pilfer; filch; steal.
  2. (dialectal, intransitive) To shrink or retire from view; lurk out of sight; skulk.
  3. (Ireland, Wales, ambitransitive) To be absent from (school) without a valid excuse; to play truant, to skive off.
    • "Did you ever mitch school?" he asked.
      "No. But I think this is what it would feel like."1983, Bernard MacLaverty, Cal, Chapter 4. (p.115 in the 1998 Vintage paperback edition)
  4. (dialectal, intransitive) To grumble secretly.
  5. (dialectal, intransitive) To pretend poverty.

See all 6 meanings of mitch

Forms of mitching

alternative formmiching
alternative formmicking

Origin of mitching

From mitch + -ing.

Questions about mitching

What does mitching mean?
Mitching means pilfering; skulking.
What is mitching the present participle and gerund of?
Mitching is the present participle and gerund of mitch.
What part of speech is mitching?
Mitching is a noun.

Words near mitching in the dictionary

  1. mitchers
  2. mitches
  3. Mitchif
  4. Mitchigamea
  5. Mitchill
  6. mitching
  7. Mitchinson
  8. Mitchinsons
  9. Mitchison
  10. Mitchner
  11. Mitchners

Source and license

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