branching

1. 1
   noununcountable

   The process of forming a branch, as something divides into two or more separate offshoots.

   Like a family tree spreading outward as each generation adds new lines.

   The branching of blood vessels lets oxygen reach every tissue in the body.

   Repeated branching gives the fern its delicate, feathery shape.

   Similarramification, forking, bifurcation, division

   Oppositeconvergence

2. 2
   verb

   Present participle of branch.

   The corporation is branching into renewable energy this year.

   Cracks were branching across the frozen lake's surface.

   Note

   One -ing form doing two jobs: the progressive participle (the corporation is branching into renewable energy) and the gerund that names the act. It carries every use of the verb, from dividing into separate parts to a program jumping to new code on a condition. It even carries the transitive sense of stripping a tree of its limbs. Once it takes a plural, branchings, it has become the noun for the process.

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