approaching

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of approach.

   The approaching deadline made everyone in the office nervous.

   Travelers noticed several figures approaching along the dusty road.

   Note

   The form that builds the verb's progressive tenses: the army was approaching from the north. It usually takes a direct object (approaching the city, approaching a stranger), but it can also be followed by to in the figurative sense of coming close to something, as in approaching to perfection. Rarely, it describes things that never move, such as a ridge seen approaching the coast. Placed before a noun, it shades into the adjective.

2. 2
   adjective

   Coming closer; drawing near in space or time.

   The approaching deadline put the whole team on edge.

   Drivers slowed to make way for the approaching ambulance.

   Similarcoming, oncoming, upcoming, impending, imminent

   Oppositereceding, departing

3. 3
   adverb

   Almost reaching a particular number, level, or point; nearly.

   Temperatures were approaching freezing by early evening.

   Her savings were approaching a thousand dollars after a year of work.

   Similarnearly, almost

   Note

   Here nothing is moving: the word sits in front of a number and works like nearly or almost, as in a 2011 New Scientist opinion piece on the evacuation of "approaching 200,000 people." The adverb is easiest to recognize inside a noun phrase like that. After be, as in temperatures were approaching freezing, it is hard to separate from the participle, which also describes drawing close to a value.

4. 4
   noununcountable

   The act of moving closer to a place, person, or moment in time.

   The slow approaching of the deadline weighed on her mind all week.

   Sailors dreaded the approaching of the storm season.

   Similarcoming, advance, onset

   Note

   A noun that keeps the motion itself in view, where approach names the event as a whole. It can even be counted. Lance J. Rips, in Lines of Thought (2011), describes moving shapes as "approachings, touchings, and departings," a run of -ing plurals that presents each movement as a bare act with no cause behind it. In ordinary prose it usually appears after the, as in the slow approaching of the deadline.

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