Word.ws English Dictionary

riding

Syllables: rid·ing/ˈɹaɪ.dɪŋ/

riding is the present participle and gerund of ride.

Noun (1)

riding (countable and uncountable, plural ridings)

  1. A path cut through woodland.
    Synonyms:
    royd, thwaite, assart
  2. The act of one who rides; a mounted excursion.
    • I like nothing better than to hear of your ridings, and shootings, and boatings.1853, Charlotte Mary Yonge, The Heir of Redclyffe, volume 1, page 95
    Synonyms:
    ride
  3. The behaviour in the motion of a vehicle, such as oscillation.
    • The admirable smoothness of the riding also reflected the greatest credit on those who, despite the difficulties caused by the shortage of men and materials, have succeeded in maintaining the track in such first-class order.1946 July and August, Cecil J. Allen, “British Locomotive Practice and Performance”, in Railway Magazine, page 213
    • A maximum of 80 m.p.h. was quickly reached on the 1 in 264 down through Three Bridges and at this pace the riding was exemplary.1959 March, “The 2,500 h.p. electric locomotives for the Kent Coast electrification”, in Trains Illustrated, page 125
  4. (historical) A festival procession.
    • It was sung from the top of the oldest house in the burgh every June at the Common riding, which served both for a perambulation of the bounds of the common pastures or Haughs and to commemorate the young men of Harwick[.]1977, K.M. Elizabeth Murray, Caught in the Web of Words, Oxford: Oxford University Press, page 27

Noun (2)

riding (plural ridings)

  1. (historical) Any of the three administrative divisions of Yorkshire and some other northern counties of England.
  2. (Canada) Electoral district or constituency.
    • Ontario shall be divided into the Counties, Ridings of Counties, Cities, Parts of Cities, and Towns enumerated in the First Schedule to this Act[…]1867, Parliament of the United Kingdom, “Section 40”, in British North America Act 1867^(British North America Act 1867), page 16

Meaning of ride

Verb

ride (third-person singular simple present rides, present participle riding, simple past rode or (obsolete) rade or (obsolete) rid, past participle ridden or (now colloquial and nonstandard) rode)

  1. (ambitransitive) To transport oneself by sitting on and directing a horse, later also a bicycle etc.
    • I ride to work every day and park the bike outside the office.
  2. (ambitransitive) To be transported in a vehicle; to travel as a passenger.
    • Now, in calm weather, to swim in the open ocean is as easy to the practised swimmer as to ride in a spring-carriage ashore.1851 November 14, Herman Melville, Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC
  3. (South Africa, US, informal, transitive) To transport (someone) in a vehicle.
    • The cab rode him downtown.
  4. (intransitive) Of a ship: to sail, to float on the water.
    • Why name I ev'ry Place where Youths abound? / 'Tis Loſs of Time; and a too fruitful Ground. / The Bajan Baths, where Ships at Anchor ride, / And wholeſome Streams from Sulphur Fountains glide: […]a. 1701, [John] Dryden, “Book I”, in Ovid, Ovid’s Art of Love. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson […], published 1709, →OCLC, pages 19–20
  5. (intransitive, transitive) To be carried or supported by something lightly and quickly; to travel in such a way, as though on horseback.
    • The witch cackled and rode away on her broomstick.
  6. (transitive) To traverse by riding.
    • Early women tobogganists rode the course in the requisite attire of their day: skirts. In spite of this hindrance, some women riders turned in very respectable performances.1999, David Levinson, Karen Christensen, Encyclopedia of World Sport: From Ancient Times to the Present

See all 32 meanings of ride

Proper noun capitalized: Riding

Riding (plural Ridings)

  1. A surname.

Synonyms of riding

Forms of riding

Noun
pluralridings
Proper noun
pluralRidings

Origin of riding

From Middle English rydyng; equivalent to ride + -ing.

PIE word *tréyes From trithing (initial /t/ absorbed into preceding north, south, east, west, inner ⟨th⟩ already sometimes /d/ in Middle English), from Middle English trithing, tridinge, from Old English *þriþing, from Old Norse þriðjungr (“third part”), from Proto-Germanic *þridjô (“third”) (English third). Equivalent to third + -ing; compare with farthing (“fourth part”). Cognate with English trithing. The folk etymology that connects the term to the area a horse-rider could cover in a single day is incorrect, but may have influenced the spelling and pronunciation.

Words formed from riding

Phrases with riding

84 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with riding

31 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about riding

What does riding mean?
Riding means a path cut through woodland.
What is riding the present participle and gerund of?
Riding is the present participle and gerund of ride.
What part of speech is riding?
Riding can be a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce riding?
Riding is pronounced /ˈɹaɪ.dɪŋ/.
What is the plural of riding?
The plural of riding is ridings.

Words near riding in the dictionary

  1. ridiculous
  2. ridiculously
  3. ridiculousness
  4. ridiculousnesses
  5. ridin'
  6. riding
  7. riding a horse foaled by an acorn
  8. riding a horse foaled of an acorn
  9. riding a rantipole
  10. riding academies
  11. riding academy

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: riding (page history and authors); Riding (page history and authors); ride (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-riding.ogg.

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