compiling

Pluralcompilings

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of compile.

   The committee is compiling evidence from dozens of witnesses.

   Compiling the annual report kept the whole team busy for weeks.

   Note

   The -ing form carries every meaning of compile, including one that needs no object. A programmer is compiling code, but the code itself can simply be compiling, meaning it is being processed by a compiler. A snooker player compiling a break uses yet another sense. As a gerund it still takes a direct object (compiling the report). Add of and it becomes the noun for the act (the compiling of the report), which can even be plural.

2. 2
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The act of gathering separate items together into a single collection; a compilation.

   The compiling of the encyclopedia required hundreds of contributors over a decade.

   Months of compiling went into the final anthology of regional folk songs.

   Similarcompilation, assembly, collection, collation

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