Word.ws English Dictionary

pumping iron

pumping iron is the present participle and gerund of pump iron.

Meaning of pump iron

Verb

pump iron (third-person singular simple present pumps iron, present participle pumping iron, simple past and past participle pumped iron)

  1. To lift weights; to engage in weight or strength training.
    • Her upper body strength has been improving since she started pumping iron at the gym.

Noun

pumping iron (uncountable)

  1. (informal) The activity of weightlifting, especially for the purposes of bodybuilding.
    • And your partner will be a friend; pumping iron is not a competition.1994, Aaron Binder, Pumping Iron After Fifty: The Golden Thread to the Self, page 29
    • He's just another one of Leo's thugs from the east side. Too much pumping iron jarred his brain loose!2002, James E. Wollrab, Malfeasance, page 91

Questions about pumping iron

What does pumping iron mean?
Pumping iron means the activity of weightlifting, especially for the purposes of bodybuilding.
What is pumping iron the present participle and gerund of?
Pumping iron is the present participle and gerund of pump iron.
What part of speech is pumping iron?
Pumping iron is a noun.

Words near pumping iron in the dictionary

  1. Pumphreys
  2. pumpies
  3. pumpin'
  4. pumping
  5. pumping and dumping
  6. pumping iron
  7. pumping lemma
  8. pumping lemmas
  9. pumping lemmata
  10. pumping one's fist
  11. pumping out

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pumping iron (page history and authors); pump iron (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)-Flame, not lame-pumping iron.wav.

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