Word.ws English Dictionary

watching paint dry

watching paint dry is the present participle and gerund of watch paint dry.

Meaning of watch paint dry

Verb

watch paint dry (third-person singular simple present watches paint dry, present participle watching paint dry, simple past and past participle watched paint dry)

  1. (humorous) To watch something that has virtually no movement, hence, something very boring.
    • I expected his new play to be as good as the last, but it was like watching paint dry.

Questions about watching paint dry

What is watching paint dry the present participle and gerund of?
Watching paint dry is the present participle and gerund of watch paint dry.

Words near watching paint dry in the dictionary

  1. watching one's mouth
  2. watching one's step
  3. watching one's tongue
  4. watching out
  5. watching over
  6. watching paint dry
  7. watching the birdie
  8. watching the feathers fly
  9. watching the fur fly
  10. watching the world burn
  11. watching the world go by

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: watching paint dry (page history and authors); watch paint dry (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.

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