Word.ws English Dictionary

tombstoning

tombstoning noun: the practice of jumping into the sea or similar body of water from a cliff or other high point such that the jumper enters the water vertically straight, like a tombstone. Also the present participle and gerund of tombstone.

Noun

tombstoning (uncountable)

  1. (UK) The practice of jumping into the sea or similar body of water from a cliff or other high point such that the jumper enters the water vertically straight, like a tombstone.
  2. The process of (automatically) initiating software sleep mode on an app.
  3. An unwanted effect in the manufacture of electronic circuit boards, in which a component stands up on end instead of lying flat.
    Synonyms:
    tombstone effect, drawbridging, Manhattan effect
  4. In page layout, putting articles side by side so that the headlines are adjacent (also referred to as bumping heads), or so that headline from one article is adjacent to the photo from another.
  5. (Southern US) In highway driving, a blockage in traffic caused by a semi-trailer truck attempting to pass another with insufficient acceleration.
  6. The practice of leaving a marker in a location where a digital record has been withdrawn, in order to signify that the record had previously existed.
  7. A tombstone pattern on an electrocardiogram.

Also used as

tombstoning is also the present participle and gerund of tombstone.

Synonyms of tombstoning

Origin of tombstoning

From tombstone + -ing.

Questions about tombstoning

What does tombstoning mean?
Tombstoning means the practice of jumping into the sea or similar body of water from a cliff or other high point such that the jumper enters the water vertically straight, like a tombstone.
What part of speech is tombstoning?
Tombstoning is a noun.

Words near tombstoning in the dictionary

  1. tombstone engineering
  2. tombstoned
  3. tombstoner
  4. tombstoners
  5. tombstones
  6. tombstoning
  7. tombusviral
  8. tombusvirid
  9. tombusvirids
  10. tombusvirus
  11. tombusviruses

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: tombstoning (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:

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