Word.ws English Dictionary

mooring

mooring is the present participle and gerund of moor.

Noun

mooring (plural moorings)

  1. A place to moor a vessel.
    • Then did the comet break loose from his moorings and the eclipse roamed about the sky, and down on the earth did Death’s three children—Famine, Pestilence, and Drought—come out to feed.1906, Lord Dunsany [i.e., Edward Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany], Time and the Gods, London: William Heineman, →OCLC, page 31
    • On the Lincolnshire side of the Humber, the Pier Station at New Holland was put out of action when the ferry boat plying to and from Hull broke loose from its moorings.1953 May, “British Railways and the January Floods”, in Railway Magazine, page 301
  2. The act of securing a vessel with a cable or anchor etc.
  3. (figuratively) Something to which one adheres, or the means that helps one to maintain a stable position and keep one's identity - moral, intellectual, political, etc.
    • The party of pro-slavery reaction was for the moment in the ascendant; and as by an irresistible impulse, the Supreme Court of the United States was swept from its hitherto impartial judicial moorings into the dangerous seas of polities.1890, John George Nicolay and John Hay, Abraham Lincoln: A History
    • Friendship from its moorings strays,
      Love binds fast together;
      Friendship is for balmy days,
      Love for stormy weather.1898, Coates, Florence Earle, song: "Friendship from its Moorings Strays"

Meaning of moor

Verb

moor (third-person singular simple present moors, present participle mooring, simple past and past participle moored)

  1. (intransitive) To cast anchor or become fastened.
    • The vessel moored in the stream.
  2. (transitive) To fix or secure (e.g. a vessel) in a particular place by casting anchor, or by fastening with ropes, cables or chains or the like.
    • They moored the boat to the wharf.
  3. (transitive) To secure or fix firmly.

See all 12 meanings of moor

Proper noun (1) capitalized: Mooring

Mooring (plural Moorings)

  1. A mainland dialect of the North Frisian language
    Synonyms:
    Mooring dialect

Proper noun (2) capitalized: Mooring

Mooring (plural Moorings)

  1. A surname.

Synonyms of mooring

  • Mooring dialect

Forms of mooring

Noun
pluralmoorings
Proper noun
pluralMoorings

Origin of mooring

Named after the moorland of the Risem Moor where it is spoken.

English surname, from a derivative diminutive of Moore.

Words formed from mooring

Phrases with mooring

Words that rhyme with mooring

Questions about mooring

What does mooring mean?
Mooring means a place to moor a vessel.
What is mooring the present participle and gerund of?
Mooring is the present participle and gerund of moor.
What part of speech is mooring?
Mooring can be a noun or a proper noun.
What is the plural of mooring?
The plural of mooring is moorings.

Words near mooring in the dictionary

  1. moories
  2. Moorilda
  3. Moorilim
  4. moorill
  5. Moorina
  6. mooring
  7. mooring buoy
  8. mooring buoys
  9. mooring line
  10. mooring lines
  11. mooring post

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: mooring (page history and authors); Mooring (page history and authors); moor (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Wodencafe-mooring.wav.

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