circling

Pluralcirclings

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of circle.

   Sharks were circling the boat as the divers climbed back aboard.

   Circling overhead, the vultures waited for the herd to move on.

   Note

   The -ing form drops the silent e of circle and keeps both sides of the verb: transitive (sharks circling a boat) and intransitive (vultures circling overhead). As a gerund it still behaves like a verb and takes a direct object, as in circling the block. By contrast, the noun for circular motion needs of: the circling of the helicopter.

2. 2
   nouncountable or uncountable

   Motion that follows a curved path around and around a central point.

   Like the steady sweep of a clock's hand traveling around the dial.

   The constant circling of the helicopter overhead annoyed the residents below.

   Her endless circling of the parking lot lasted ten minutes before a space opened.

   Similarwheeling, looping, orbiting

   Note

   Most often a mass noun for motion that keeps going, as in the circling of a helicopter. It can also count separate loops. In Herman Melville's Moby-Dick (1851), a bird wheels round a man's head "in a maze of untrackably swift circlings." There the plural breaks one blur of motion into many distinct passes, each too quick to follow.

3. 3
   noununcountable

   A practice in which people sit in a circle and take turns speaking about their emotions or experiences while the others listen, meant to heal or to build closeness within the group.

   Like passing a talking stick around a campfire, each voice heard in turn.

   The retreat included daily circling, where participants spoke openly about their grief.

   Many support groups use circling to deepen trust among their members.

   Note

   The name of a group practice, used like other activity nouns without an article: a program includes circling, not a circling. Bonnie J. Leadbeater and Niobe Way's Urban Girls (1996) lists it among feminist strategies for keeping relationships in mentoring groups egalitarian. Unlike the noun for circular motion, it never takes a plural.

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