arguing

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of argue.

   The couple kept arguing over who would drive to the airport.

   Arguing a case before the appeals court demands careful preparation.

   Note

   One spelling does two jobs. After be it is a participle (they were arguing), and as a subject or object it is a gerund (arguing rarely helps). The transitive uses of argue carry straight through: arguing a case, arguing a point, arguing that the facts imply guilt. The quarreling use takes with or over instead. As a gerund it can still take an object, which the plain noun cannot.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   A verbal disagreement or quarrel; an argument.

   Constant arguing over their father's inheritance divided the brothers.

   Heated arguing broke out at the town meeting over the new tax.

   Similarquarreling, bickering, fighting, squabbling, wrangling

   Oppositeagreement, harmony

   Note

   Here the -ing word has become a true noun, one that can count and take a plural. Thomas Carlyle's The Prinzenraub (1855) has a succession dispute after which "arose great arguings as to who should inherit." Without the plural it names ongoing dispute in general, as in heated arguing or constant arguing. Argument would name one particular quarrel.

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