adulting

1. 1
   nounslanguncountable

   The collection of routine responsibilities and tasks associated with being an adult, such as managing finances and handling household chores.

   Like suddenly being handed the controls of a plane you had only ever watched someone else fly.

   After moving out, she discovered that adulting mostly meant chasing down paperwork.

   Between taxes and dentist appointments, adulting consumed his entire weekend.

   Note

   Slang that treats being grown-up as something you do rather than something you are, built simply from adult plus -ing. The noun is uncountable: you do some adulting, or a lot of it, but never an adulting, and it has no plural. Because it is slang, keep it to casual talk and messages. In formal writing, responsibilities or household tasks carry the meaning without the joke.

2. 2
   verbinformal

   Present participle of adult. Informal and often joking.

   I'm adulting today, so I finally scheduled that doctor's appointment.

   She spent the morning adulting, sorting bills and booking repairs.

   Note

   Two quite different verbs share this -ing form. One is slang and intransitive, meaning to behave like an adult, and it even takes a prefix: Kenneth Jedding (2010) urges out-adulting someone, being the bigger adult. The other is rare and nonstandard, meaning to make or become adult; Jane Humphries (2007) applies it to whole job markets. As a gerund, the slang verb sits very close to the noun for grown-up chores.

3. 3
   nounnonstandarduncountable

   Voluntary sexual unfaithfulness between a married person and someone other than their spouse.

   He was cast out of the household after his adulting came to light.

   Her diary hinted at years of secret adulting.

   Similaradultery, infidelity, unfaithfulness

   Oppositefidelity, faithfulness

   Note

   A nonstandard stand-in for adultery, and a risky one. Careful speech and writing use adultery itself. Most listeners now hear the word first as the grown-up chores meaning. A sentence that uses it for infidelity therefore needs plain context, such as a spouse, an affair or a betrayal. Without that, it may be taken as a joke about paying bills.

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