spooking

spooking is the present participle and gerund of spook.

Noun

spooking (countable and uncountable, plural spookings)

A supernatural fright.
- Until her death Marie maintained that it was she and a few other fun-loving and lively girls who had started the spookings at the expense of the superstitious sisters.1981, Selecta: Journal of the PNCFL, page 106
(slang) The form of hole carding engaged in by a spook.

spook (third-person singular simple present spooks, present participle spooking, simple past and past participle spooked)

(transitive) To frighten or make nervous (especially by startling).
- The hunters were spooked when the black cat crossed their path. The movement in the bushes spooked the deer and they ran.
(intransitive) To become frightened (by something startling).
- The deer spooked at the sound of the dogs.
(transitive) To haunt.

plural	spookings

What does spooking mean?: Spooking means a supernatural fright.
What is spooking the present participle and gerund of?: Spooking is the present participle and gerund of spook.
What part of speech is spooking?: Spooking is a noun.
What is the plural of spooking?: The plural of spooking is spookings.

Adapted from Wiktionary: spooking (page history and authors); spook (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: 2026-09-02

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