Word.ws English Dictionary

trolling

UK/ˈtɹɒlɪŋ//ˈtɹoʊlɪŋ/

trolling is the present participle and gerund of troll.

Noun

trolling (plural trollings)

  1. The act of one who trolls (in various senses of provoking others).
  2. A fishing technique in which one or more baited fishing lines are dragged by a moving boat. Not to be confused with trawling, which drags a net.

Meaning of troll

Verb

troll (third-person singular simple present trolls, present participle trolling, simple past and past participle trolled)

  1. (transitive) To move (something, especially a round object) by, or as if by, rolling; to bowl, to roll, to trundle.
    • Take trustie (to trust to) that thinkest to thee, / That trustily thriftines trowleth to thee.1878, Thomas Tusser, “A Briefe Conclusion, where You may See, ech Word in the Verse, to Begin with a T”, in Five Hundred Pointes of Good Husbandrie. […], London: Published for the English Dialect...
  2. (obsolete, transitive) Often followed by in: to cause (something) to flow or roll in like a stream.
  3. (intransitive) To roll; also, to turn round and round; to rotate, to spin, to whirl.
    • Mrs Putler, this is Lady—Lady—these tamn'd Southern names rin out o' my head like a stane trowling down hill— […]1818 July 25, Jedediah Cleishbotham [pseudonym; Walter Scott], chapter XIII, in Tales of My Landlord, Second Series, […] (The Heart of Mid-Lothian), volume IV, Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and...
  4. (intransitive) To move or walk at a leisurely pace; to ramble, to saunter, to stroll.
    • Prepoſt'rous foole, thou troul'ſt amiſſe: / Thou err'ſt; That's not the vvay, 'Tis this: / Thy hopes, inſtructed by thine Eye, / Make thee appeare more neare than I; […]1635, Fra[ncis] Quarles, “Canto XI. Mat[thew] VII. XIV.”, in Emblemes, London: […] G[eorge] M[iller] and sold at at Iohn Marriots shope […], →OCLC, book II, stanza 1, page 105
  5. (intransitive, slang, specifically) Chiefly of a man: synonym of cruise (“to stroll about to find a (male) sexual partner”).
  6. (intransitive, obsolete) Followed by in: to flow or roll in like a stream.
    • This little ape gets money by the sack-full, / It trolls upon her.c. 1623 (date written; published 1653), Thomas Middleton, William Rowley, Thomas Dekker, John Ford, “The Spanish Gipsy”, in A[rthur] H[enry] Bullen, editor, The Works of Thomas Middleton […] (The...

See all 39 meanings of troll

Forms of trolling

pluraltrollings

Words formed from trolling

Phrases with trolling

Words that rhyme with trolling

Questions about trolling

What does trolling mean?
Trolling means the act of one who trolls (in various senses of provoking others).
What is trolling the present participle and gerund of?
Trolling is the present participle and gerund of troll.
What part of speech is trolling?
Trolling is a noun.
How do you pronounce trolling?
Trolling is pronounced /ˈtɹɒlɪŋ/ (UK).
What is the plural of trolling?
The plural of trolling is trollings.

Words near trolling in the dictionary

  1. trollibobs
  2. trollichrome
  3. trollicious
  4. trollied
  5. trollies
  6. trolling
  7. trolling-rod
  8. trolling-rods
  9. Trollinger
  10. Trollingers
  11. trollings

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: trolling (page history and authors); troll (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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-trolling.wav.

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