bossing

Pluralbossings

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of boss.

   Constantly bossing her colleagues, she made few friends at the office.

   The manager's habit of bossing everyone gradually wore on the staff.

   Note

   Two different verbs share this -ing form. The everyday one means ordering people about, as in constantly bossing her colleagues. The craft one means decorating a surface with raised bosses, or embossing it. The object usually settles which is meant: a person points to giving orders, while a surface or object points to ornament, the idea behind the architectural noun. As a gerund it can head a noun phrase: her bossing of the staff.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   A boss: a projecting, often ornamental element raised from a surface, such as the carved knob set where vaulting ribs meet.

   Each bossing on the cathedral vault was carved with a different leaf design.

   Restorers carefully cleaned the gilded bossing at the apex of the chapel ceiling.

   Similarknob

   Note

   An architectural alternative to the shorter boss, and an ordinary countable noun: one bossing, several bossings across a vault. Because it looks like a gerund, it is easy to blur with the verb form, which can mean the work of decorating with bosses. A bossing is the finished knob, while bossing a ceiling is the act of adding them. An article or a plural ending marks the noun.

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