checking

Pluralcheckings

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of check.

   He is checking the figures against last year's report.

   Checking for errors became part of her daily routine.

   Note

   One spelling does two grammatical jobs. After a form of be it builds the progressive (she is checking the locks). Standing alone as a subject or object it is a gerund (checking takes time). Either way it carries every meaning of the verb, from inspecting and verifying to restraining. Context decides which: checking a report means reading it closely, while checking an advance means slowing it down.

2. 2
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The act of examining or verifying something or someone, in any of its senses.

   Routine checking of the equipment prevents accidents later on.

   Her constant checking of the front door annoyed everyone in the house.

   Similarinspection, examination, verification, testing

   Note

   The everyday verbal noun is broad enough to cover any meaning of the verb. Unlike the gerund, it can take an article, an adjective and a plural for repeated acts. Kathleen Conlon's Unfinished Business (1991) has Valerie reaching the flat after "numerous checkings of her map." Uncountable uses such as routine checking are the more usual pattern.

3. 3
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The act of physically keeping an opposing player in check, as by body or stick contact in ice hockey.

   Aggressive checking along the boards drew a two-minute penalty.

   Legal checking must target the puck carrier, not a defenseless skater.

   Note

   Ice hockey's word for defensive contact grows from the restraining side of the verb, the idea of holding someone in check. It covers both body and stick contact, and the rulebook decides where and on whom it is legal. Used without an article it names the practice, as in a game full of heavy checking. With an article or a plural it names single instances.

4. 4
   nouncolloquialcountable

   A bank account for frequent deposits and withdrawals; an informal shortening of checking account.

   I keep just enough in my checking to cover the monthly bills.

   The bank linked her savings to her checking for overdraft protection.

   Note

   A banking clipping that drops the word account and keeps the adjective. Money moves from checking to savings, or sits in my checking. Although countable, it usually appears without an article, as if naming the place where money lives. It belongs to conversation rather than paperwork, so careful writing still spells out checking account. It pairs naturally with savings, which is clipped the same way.

5. 5
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The crossing of word solutions in a grid, where across and down entries intersect so that shared squares constrain both answers.

   Dense checking means almost every letter belongs to two intersecting words.

   Puzzles with little checking force solvers to rely on the clues alone.

   Note

   Crossword solvers and setters use this term for the way answers interlock. Its commonest companion is checking letters, the letters a crossing answer has already supplied. In a fully checked grid every cell is shared, while an unchecked cell belongs to one answer only. Special puzzles can bend the rules elsewhere. Games & Puzzles noted in 1977 that in Printer's Devilry "checking is normal but the clues are special."

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