administering

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of administer.

   The hospital is administering vaccines to thousands of people each week.

   Administering a large estate requires patience and careful record-keeping.

   Note

   One spelling does two jobs. After a form of be it builds the progressive (the nurse is administering the dose). At the head of a clause it works as a gerund that names the activity (administering an oath takes seconds). Most uses take a direct object, such as a drug, an oath or an estate. The intransitive pattern appears in administering to the sick, where it means ministering. Unlike the countable noun, the gerund has no plural.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The management or running of an organization, estate, or set of affairs.

   The administering of the trust required annual reports to all beneficiaries.

   Day-to-day administering of the department fell to a small, overworked staff.

   Similarmanagement, administration, running, supervision

   Note

   A noun that rivals administration but keeps the feel of an ongoing act rather than an office or a body of officials. It can be counted: Wendy Woodward and Gary Minkley's Deep Histories (2002) speaks of "self-absorbed administerings," meaning acts of tending a body, where administrations would sound like governments. In the singular it most naturally takes the and of: the administering of the trust.

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