thrusting

Noun

thrusting (plural thrustings)

1. The motion by which someone or something thrusts.
   • The coaxing tone in which he said these latter words might have failed in its object, if he had not accompanied them with sundry sharp jerks of his thumb over one shoulder, and with divers winks and thrustings of his tongue into his cheek, from which signals the damsel gathered that he sought to...1841 February–November, Charles Dickens, “Barnaby Rudge. Chapter 70.”, in Master Humphrey’s Clock, volume III, London: Chapman & Hall, […], →OCLC
   • there were heavings and thrustings of the crowded tribes as they elbowed themselves by natural courses towards the light.1926, T.E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom, New York: Anchor
2. (dialectal, obsolete, rare) The act of squeezing curd by hand, to expel the whey.

   Synonyms:

   pressing

3. (dialectal, obsolete, rare, usually pluralised) The white whey, or that which is last pressed out of the curd by the hand, and of which butter is sometimes made.
   • a. 1802, quoted in The Domestic Encyclopedia
   • In the process of making whey butter,..the ‘thrustings’, or white whey, is set in ‘cream mugs’, to ‘carve’, and acidulate for churning.