carpentering

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle of carpenter.

   He kept carpentering late into the night to finish the cabinet.

   They were carpentering a new set of shelves for the library.

   Note

   The verb carpenter works both with and without an object, and its -ing form follows suit. Someone can simply be carpentering late into the night, or be carpentering shelves, a cabinet or a frame. With be it forms the progressive, and after kept or went on it marks work that continues. Standing as a subject or after a preposition, the same form is usually the noun for the trade.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The trade and craft of making, building, and repairing things from wood.

   She learned carpentering from her grandfather, who built furniture for the whole village.

   Skilled carpentering kept the old barn standing for another hundred years.

   Similarcarpentry, woodworking, joinery

   Note

   A trade name built the way coopering, tailoring and blacksmithing are built: carpenter plus -ing. It means the same as carpentry, and it likes company. Melville sets it among the gun-deck trades in White Jacket, and George Orwell places it among the "necessary arts" beside blacksmithing. After be or kept, the same spelling is the verb in progress, not the name of the craft.

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