Word.ws English Dictionary

wringing

wringing is the present participle and gerund of wring.

Meaning of wring

Verb

wring (third-person singular simple present wrings, present participle wringing, simple past and past participle wrung or (archaic or dialectal) wrang or (rare) wringed)

  1. (transitive) Often followed by out: to squeeze or twist (something moist) tightly so that liquid is forced out.
    • I didn’t have a towel so I just wrung my hair dry.
    1. (transitive) To squeeze water (from an item of wet clothing) by passing through a wringer.
      • “I feel I’ve been wrung through a wringer,” Maggie said.1988, Anne Tyler, chapter 1, in Breathing Lessons (A Borzoi Book), New York City: Alfred A. Knopf, →ISBN, part 1, page 25
  2. (also, figuratively, transitive) Often followed by from or out: to extract (a liquid) from something wet by squeezing, twisting, or otherwise putting pressure on it.
    • Put the berries into a cheesecloth and wring the juice into a bowl.
  3. (also, figuratively, transitive) To hold (someone or something) tightly and press or twist; to wrest.
    • to wring someone’s hand
    Synonyms:
    strangle, throttle
    1. (also, figuratively, transitive) To clasp and twist (hands) together due to distress, sorrow, etc.
      • to wring one’s hands with worry
  4. (transitive) To bend or strain (something) out of its position; to wrench, to wrest.
    • to wring a mast

See all 30 meanings of wring

Noun

wringing (plural wringings)

  1. The act by which something is wrung.

Forms of wringing

pluralwringings

Origin of wringing

From Middle English wryngynge; equivalent to wring + -ing.

Words formed from wringing

Phrases with wringing

Questions about wringing

What does wringing mean?
Wringing means the act by which something is wrung.
What is wringing the present participle and gerund of?
Wringing is the present participle and gerund of wring.
What part of speech is wringing?
Wringing is a noun.
What is the plural of wringing?
The plural of wringing is wringings.

Words near wringing in the dictionary

  1. wringer
  2. wringerless
  3. wringers
  4. wringest
  5. wringeth
  6. wringing
  7. wringing out
  8. wringing out one's sock
  9. wringing wet
  10. wringings
  11. wringle-wrangle

Source and license

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