classing

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of class.

   The auctioneer is classing the lots by estimated value.

   Classing applicants into tiers helped the committee compare them fairly.

   Note

   As a gerund, it keeps the grammar of a verb, and that is how to tell it from the noun meaning classification. The gerund takes a direct object (classing applicants into tiers), while the noun needs of (the classing of fleeces). Like class itself, it works both ways. Transitively, someone is classing things into groups. Intransitively, things are classing together, being grouped.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The act or result of sorting things into categories; classification.

   The classing of fleeces by quality determines their market price.

   Accurate classing of the samples saved hours during the later analysis.

   Similarclassification

   Note

   The plural counts individual sorting results as well as naming the general process. The United States Department of Agriculture's Cotton Quality Crop of 1988 (1989) reports that grades 41 and higher made up 76 percent of classings. In grading reports like that one, each classing is a single graded result, and the countable plural lets those results be tallied as shares of a whole.

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