Word.ws English Dictionary

seizing

UK/ˈsizɪŋ/

seizing is the present participle and gerund of seize.

Noun

seizing (countable and uncountable, plural seizings)

  1. The act of grabbing or taking possession.
  2. (in plural) Something seized.
    • The pirates buried their seizings and marked the map with an X.
  3. A type of lashing or binding by a small cord.
    • Cut your seizings and draw the poles, ye harpooneers!”
      Silently obeying the order, the three harpooneers now stood with the detached iron part of their harpoons, some three feet long, held, barbs up, before him.1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “chapter 36”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC
    1. Such lashing used to temporarily immobilize the ends of a rope to prevent a knot from slipping or collapsing.

Meaning of seize

Verb

seize (third-person singular simple present seizes, present participle seizing, simple past and past participle seized)

  1. (transitive) To deliberately take hold of; to grab or capture.
  2. (transitive) To take advantage of (an opportunity or circumstance).
    Synonyms:
    jump on
  3. (transitive) To take possession of (by force, law etc.).
    • to seize smuggled goods
  4. (transitive) To have a sudden and powerful effect upon.
    • a panic seized the crowd
  5. (transitive) To bind, lash or make fast, with several turns of small rope, cord, or small line.
    • to seize two fish-hooks back to back
  6. (obsolete, transitive) To fasten, fix.

See all 12 meanings of seize

Adjective

seizing (comparative more seizing, superlative most seizing)

  1. That seizes the attention; impressive.
    • It is a world of seizing visual beauty, of shimmering whites and yellows that shift to glowing apricot, pink and violet with the sinking of the saturant sun.1977, Alistair Horne, A Savage War of Peace, New York: Review Books, published 2006, page 45

Forms of seizing

Noun
pluralseizings
Adjective
comparativemore seizing
superlativemost seizing

Origin of seizing

From seize + -ing.

Phrases with seizing

Words that rhyme with seizing

Questions about seizing

What does seizing mean?
Seizing means the act of grabbing or taking possession.
What is seizing the present participle and gerund of?
Seizing is the present participle and gerund of seize.
What part of speech is seizing?
Seizing can be a noun or an adjective.
How do you pronounce seizing?
Seizing is pronounced /ˈsizɪŋ/ (UK).
What is the plural of seizing?
The plural of seizing is seizings.

Words near seizing in the dictionary

  1. seizes up
  2. seizes upon
  3. seizest
  4. seizeth
  5. seizin
  6. seizing
  7. seizing on
  8. seizing out
  9. seizing the day
  10. seizing the initiative
  11. seizing the opportunity

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: seizing (page history and authors); seize (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-seizing.ogg.

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