bonding

Pluralbondings (some meanings)

1. 1
   noununcountable

   A relationship between a parent and child that forms the basis for a lasting mutual attachment.

   Like the invisible thread that keeps a parent and child connected from the very start.

   Early bonding between mother and infant supports healthy emotional development.

   The adoption counselor explained how bonding can deepen over the first year.

   Similarattachment

2. 2
   nouncountable or uncountable

   A close friendship that develops between adults, often through intense shared experiences such as military combat.

   The bonding among the rescue crew came from facing danger side by side.

   Years of shared hardship created a bonding that outlasted their service.

   Similarcamaraderie, friendship, fellowship

   Note

   The people who bond often come first, as a modifier: sibling bonding, a work bonding session. Those uses stretch the sense past friendships forged in combat to coworkers and brothers and sisters. A "bonding session" frames the friendship as something an occasion is arranged to produce. Keep it distinct from the parent-child attachment, which names a lasting tie formed early in life.

3. 3
   noununcountable

   The process or act of joining two materials firmly together.

   The bonding of the panels was done with an industrial adhesive.

   Proper surface cleaning ensures good bonding between the layers.

   Similaradhesion

   Note

   Usually an uncountable process word, as in the bonding of panels or good bonding between layers, it can also count individual joins. Walter Frederick Buckley's Society - a Complex Adaptive System (1998) calls atoms "particular bondings of more elementary particles," using the plural for the joined result rather than the act. The countable use suits structures built from linked parts.

4. 4
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of bond.

   The team is bonding well after the weekend retreat.

   Bonding with a new pet takes time and patience.

   Note

   The -ing form serves every verb sense of bond, from gluing materials and forming chemical compounds to securing goods until duties are paid. Most of those senses need an object (bonding the panels, bonding the cargo). The friendship sense stands alone or takes with, as in bonding with a new pet. The same spelling is also a noun, as in the parent-child attachment.

5. 5
   noununcountable

   In computing, a method of combining several network interfaces on one computer so that they act as a single logical interface.

   Network bonding lets the system stay online even if one cable fails.

   Administrators configured bonding to combine the two Ethernet ports.

   Note

   A system administrator's term: two or more physical network ports are presented to the operating system as one logical interface. The payoff is either more throughput or redundancy, so the connection survives when a single link fails. It usually appears as network bonding or as the object of configure. It shares only an image with the joining of materials: several things made to act as one.

6. 6
   noununcountable

   A customs arrangement under which goods are kept in a warehouse until the duties on them have been paid.

   The cargo was placed under bonding while the firm arranged payment of the duties.

   A bonding agreement allowed the goods to clear customs only after the duties were settled.

   Note

   Customs vocabulary built on the verb: imported goods are bonded, held in a bonded warehouse, and the duties are deferred until the goods are withdrawn for use or sale. That deferral is the point of the arrangement. The importer pays when the goods leave storage, not when they arrive.

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