banding

Pluralbandings

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle of band.

   Local groups are banding together to oppose the new road.

   She is banding the bundle of papers with a thick rubber strip.

   Note

   The participle leads a double grammatical life. Transitively it takes an object: banding a bird's leg, banding a bundle of papers, banding students by ability, which is also called streaming. Intransitively it pairs with together, as in groups banding together, and that use is the one behind the noun of forming alliances. The same form also fills noun slots as a gerund.

2. 2
   nouncountable or uncountable

   A pattern of markings that appear as parallel bands or stripes.

   Geologists noted distinct banding across the exposed cliff face.

   Under the microscope, the feather revealed fine banding.

   Similarstriping, striation, stripes

3. 3
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The sorting of items, people, or values into separate groups, levels, or brackets.

   The council introduced income banding to set its fee levels.

   Salary banding groups employees into a few ranked pay levels.

   Similargrouping, grading, classification

4. 4
   nouncountable or uncountable

   A method of studying wild birds by attaching a small, individually numbered metal or plastic tag to a leg or wing.

   Banding has revealed the migration routes of many songbirds.

   Researchers rely on banding to estimate how long wild geese live.

   Similarringing

   Note

   Field ornithology names the method after its equipment: the band is the small numbered ring fitted around a bird's leg, and banding is both the practice and a single session of it. Ringing means the same thing and is built the same way, from ring. Keep it apart from the striped-pattern meaning: a banded bird may carry a ring, not stripes.

5. 5
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The forming of people or units into a band or brigade.

   The banding of small towns into a single district improved local services.

   The banding of workers into a union changed life at the factory.

   Similargrouping, amalgamation, unification, consolidation

   Note

   Its natural partner is together. The Odd-fellows' Offering of 1848 praises "the useful bandings together for human improvement," and that plural shows the noun counting separate alliances rather than naming a single act. The phrase mirrors the verb band together, to confederate. Used without together, the noun can drift toward the stripes or the bird tags.

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