asking

Pluralaskings (some meanings)

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle of ask.

   He was asking too many questions during the meeting.

   They are asking whether the deadline can be extended.

   Note

   The -ing form that carries the verb's progressive tenses: she is asking, they were asking. It keeps every construction of ask, as in asking a question, asking someone to wait, asking for help, asking whether. The spelling hides two histories. This form and the adjective descend from Old English āsciende, a participle, while the nouns come from a separate Old English noun, āscung.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The act or process of questioning someone or requesting something.

   The constant asking for updates slowed the whole team down.

   Everything she wanted seemed to be hers for the asking.

   Similarrequest

   Note

   The noun that turns the act itself into a thing. Old English āscung already meant an asking, a question, an inquiry. Writers like to pair it with silence, as in Letitia Landon's "mute asking" and Martin Buber's "Form's silent asking". The phrase "the very asking" puts the stress on the act rather than on what is sought, as when Osho says that the very asking makes someone unlovely.

3. 3
   adjective

   That asks; expressing a question or request.

   Her asking glance made it clear she wanted to leave early.

   The asking tone in his voice was hard to ignore.

   Similarquestioning, inquiring, quizzical

   Note

   An adjective of faces and glances. Writers give it to eyes and looks: Edna Ferber's dog gazes up with "soft asking eyes", and in Zora Neale Hurston's Dust Tracks on a Road people look at each other "in an asking way". It names the appeal carried by a look more often than a spoken question, and it is gradable: more asking, most asking.

4. 4
   nouncountable or uncountableplural

   The marriage banns, the announcement made in church that two people intend to marry.

   Nobody rose to object when the couple's askings were called in the village church.

   With her askings already published in two parishes, she had little time left to change her mind.

   Similarbanns

   Note

   Like banns itself, this meaning lives in the plural: a couple's askings, never a single asking. The name was not borrowed as a later figure of speech. It comes from the same Old English āscung as the ordinary act of asking, so the church announcement simply carries the plain word for asking.

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