wooing

wooing is the present participle and gerund of woo.

Meaning of woo

woo (third-person singular simple present woos, present participle wooing, simple past and past participle wooed)

(transitive) To endeavor to gain someone's affection or support.
- They're trying to woo the customers back with this new mobile plan.
(transitive) Often of a man, to try to persuade (someone) to be in an amorous relationship with.
- Soo leue we syr Launcelot lyenge within that caue in grete payne / and euery day ther came a lady & brouȝt hym his mete & his drynke / & wowed hym to haue layne by hym / and euer the noble knyghte syre Launcelot sayd her nay.
  "So leave we Sir Launcelot lying within that cave in great pain; and...1485, Thomas Malory, Le Morte Darthur Book XIX, Chapter viii, leaf 393v
(transitive) To court solicitously; to invite with importunity; to solicit in love.
- Thee Chauntreſs oft the Woods among, / I woo to hear thy eeven Song;a. 1645, John Milton, “Il Penseroso”, in Poems of Mr. John Milton, […], London: […] Ruth Raworth for Humphrey Mosely, […], published 1646, →OCLC, page 39
Synonyms:

court

wooing (plural wooings)

A courting; the process by which somebody is wooed.
- "Sweet soul! I know his appetite," said Mrs. Mallowe. "Did he, oh did he, begin his wooing?"1889, Rudyard Kipling, “The Education of Otis Yeere”, in Under the Deodars, Boston: The Greenock Press, published 1899, page 10
- She felt a little as she had used to feel when she sat by her now wedded husband in the same spot during his wooing, shutting her eyes to his defects of character, and regarding him only in his ideal presentation as lover.1891, Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d'Urbervilles, volume 1, London: James R. Osgood, McIlvaine and Co., page 36

plural	wooings

What does wooing mean?: Wooing means a courting; the process by which somebody is wooed.
What is wooing the present participle and gerund of?: Wooing is the present participle and gerund of woo.
What part of speech is wooing?: Wooing is a noun.
What is the plural of wooing?: The plural of wooing is wooings.

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