accusing

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of accuse.

   The article spent three paragraphs accusing the company of fraud.

   Accusing someone without proof can quickly damage a friendship.

   Note

   The -ing form does double duty: it builds progressive tenses (she was accusing him) and works as a gerund that can head a sentence (accusing someone without proof is risky). Either way it keeps the verb's pattern. The person blamed is the object, and the charge follows with of: accusing the company of fraud. It can also stand without an object. The same spelling serves the adjective and the noun for an accusation.

2. 2
   adjective

   Suggesting or expressing that someone has done something wrong; accusatory.

   The accusing glare from across the room left no doubt about her suspicions.

   He pointed an accusing finger at the youngest sibling.

   Similaraccusatory, reproachful, condemnatory

   Note

   A true adjective, not just a participle in disguise: it takes degrees (more accusing, most accusing) and sits comfortably before nouns of looking and pointing, such as a glare, a look or a finger. The accusing finger is close to a fixed image. Stephen Fry, in The Liar (1991), gives one to a statue that points down "with the accusing finger of an Italian traffic policeman or wartime recruiting poster."

3. 3
   noununcountable

   The act of charging someone with wrongdoing; an accusation.

   The endless accusing among neighbors poisoned the small village.

   His accusing of the staff turned out to be completely baseless.

   Similarblaming, recrimination

   Note

   Here the -ing form has become a full noun. It can be counted and made plural, as in accusings. Johnson Grant's Sketches in divinity (1840) pairs "accusings and self-approbations" as the mind's own verdicts on itself. Where the gerund in the verb form keeps a direct object, this noun takes a possessive and of instead: his accusing of the staff.

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