spotting

spotting is the present participle and gerund of spot.

Noun

spotting (plural spottings)

A spotted pattern.
- Symptoms consist of various foliage spottings and blotchings.1954, Thomas H. Everett, The American Gardener's Book of Bulbs, page 161
The act of spotting or sighting something.
- Although the NVA went to great lengths to conceal the locations of their artillery, they had to expose them at the time of firing. Less reliable than visual spottings were electronic intercepts […]2009, “Close Air Support and the Battle for Khe Sanh”, in Marine Corps, US, page 100
Vaginal spotting, the discharge of blood from the vagina at a time outside of one's usual menses.
- Subchorionic bleeding […] can cause light to heavy spotting but doesn't always (sometimes it is only detected during a routine ultrasound).2008, Heidi Murkoff, Sharon Mazel, What to Expect When You're Expecting: 4th Edition, page 138

spot (third-person singular simple present spots, present participle spotting, simple past and past participle spotted)

(transitive) To see, find; to pick out, notice, locate, distinguish or identify.
- Try to spot the differences between these two pictures.
Synonyms:

catch sight of, descry, make out
(US, ditransitive, slang) To loan a small amount of money to someone.
- I’ll spot you ten dollars for lunch.
(ambitransitive) To stain; to leave a spot (on).
- Hard water will spot if it is left on a surface.
Synonyms:

begrime, blot, soil, assoil, beclart, bedaub, bedirty, imbrue (especially with blood), bedizen, befile
(transitive) To cover with spots, to speckle.
- No palm-tree rose to spot the wilderness; […]1853, Robert Southey, The Poetical Works of Robert Southey, page 6
Synonyms:

asperse, bespeckle, fleck
To experience vaginal spotting; to expel blood from the vagina.
- "If you've got regular periods with an IUD that's fine, but if you're starting to spot or get quite a regular loss, then it should be carefully investigated." (Last)1988, Anne Dickson, Nikki Henriques, Women on Menopause: A Practical Guide to a Positive Transition, Inner Traditions / Bear & Co, →ISBN, page 39
(dialectal) To rain slightly, in scattered, infrequent drops, for example when first beginning to rain.
- And it is beginning to spot with rain. I must start work on a shelter.2019 April 1, Louise Allen, Least Likely to Marry a Duke: A Regency Historical Romance, Harlequin, →ISBN

plural	spottings

What does spotting mean?: Spotting means a spotted pattern.
What is spotting the present participle and gerund of?: Spotting is the present participle and gerund of spot.
What part of speech is spotting?: Spotting is a noun.
What is the plural of spotting?: The plural of spotting is spottings.

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