beefing

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of beef.

   Two rival rappers have been beefing over stolen lyrics for months.

   She spent the whole meeting beefing about the new schedule.

   Note

   The -ing form does double duty: it is a progressive verb (they have been beefing for months) and a verbal noun (all that beefing got her nowhere). Most of its slang meanings take no object. These include complaining and, in Multicultural London English, feuding with a rival. The strengthening meaning, by contrast, needs something to act on. The countable plural beefings belongs to a different noun altogether: the apple.

2. 2
   noun

   Alternative form of biffin (a type of dark-red cooking apple).

   He polished a deep-red beefing before slicing it for the tart.

   A single beefing sat in the fruit bowl, dark and faintly wrinkled.

   Note

   Another spelling of biffin, the deep-red cooking apple native to Britain. Like biffin, it can also name the apple once it has been baked and flattened into a snack, a treat popular in Norfolk. It is an ordinary countable noun with the plural beefings. That plural is the quickest way to tell it apart from the slang verb form.

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