bulging

Pluralbulgings

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of bulge.

   The old suitcase was bulging at the seams after two weeks of souvenir shopping.

   Veins stood out on his neck, bulging as he lifted the weight over his head.

   Note

   The -ing form of bulge does three jobs. After be it shows swelling still under way (the bag was bulging); before a noun it works as an adjective, as in bulging pockets or a bulging wall; and as a gerund it names the action itself. Bulge drops its final e before -ing. Once the word takes a plural, it has become the noun for the shape.

2. 2
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The outward shape of something that bulges, or the movement it makes as it pushes out.

   The slow bulging of the canvas told the sailors the wind was picking up.

   Inspectors found small bulgings and cracks along the base of the retaining wall.

   Similarswelling, protrusion

   Note

   A noun that often travels in pairs with other -ing nouns, each naming one way a surface loses its shape. Samuel Beckett's Watt (1953) lingers on "the little bulgings and crumplings" of pinched stuff, and saggings and bulgings is the natural pairing for trays or walls giving way under load. Used this way it is countable: a surface shows bulgings, plural, in several places at once.

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