Word.ws English Dictionary

puling

puling is the present participle and gerund of pule.

Meaning of pule

Verb

pule (third-person singular simple present pules, present participle puling, simple past and past participle puled)

  1. (intransitive) To whimper or whine.
    • Although the elderly man felt mounting pain from his illness, he never complained or puled.
  2. (intransitive) To pipe or chirp.
  3. (snow, etc) To fall in a continuous, light dribble.
    • ... rain took even less time since fronts rolled through about every forty-eight hours. The first two opportunities he didn't even bother to check out since the low pressure systems had been puling little pissers[,] dropping spotty rainfall[,][…]2006 06, Dan Skelton, The Human Element, Dan Skelton, →ISBN, page 123

See all 5 meanings of pule

Noun

puling (plural pulings)

  1. A whining or whimpering.
    • Leave this faint puling and lament as I do.c. 1608–1609 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Coriolanus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
    • Let the songs be loud and cheerful, and not chirpings or pulings.1625, Francis [Bacon], “Of Masques and Triumphs”, in The Essayes […], 3rd edition, London: […] Iohn Haviland for Hanna Barret, →OCLC
    Synonyms:
    mewling

Synonyms of puling

Forms of puling

pluralpulings

Origin of puling

From pule + -ing.

Questions about puling

What does puling mean?
Puling means a whining or whimpering.
What is puling the present participle and gerund of?
Puling is the present participle and gerund of pule.
What part of speech is puling?
Puling is a noun.
What is the plural of puling?
The plural of puling is pulings.

Words near puling in the dictionary

  1. Pulidos
  2. pulihora
  3. pulik
  4. Pulinda
  5. Pulindas
  6. puling
  7. pulingly
  8. pulings
  9. puliol royal
  10. pulis
  11. Pulises

Source and license

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