complaining

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of complain.

   The neighbors are complaining about the noise from the construction site.

   Complaining about the weather won't make the rain stop.

   Note

   The -ing form does double duty. After be it builds the progressive (they are complaining), and at the head of a clause it works as a noun (complaining won't help). Because complain is intransitive, the thing objected to arrives through about rather than as a direct object. Its creaking sense carries over too, so a complaining wheel or timber is one that squeaks.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The act of expressing dissatisfaction, annoyance, or a grievance about something.

   His endless complaining wore down everyone's patience by the end of the week.

   The manager grew tired of the constant complaining from the night shift.

   Similargrumbling, moaning, whining, griping, carping

   Note

   Here the word has become a true noun, able to take a plural. Dinah Maria Craik's Mistress and Maid (1863) lists "all his little crossnesses and complainings" among the humours Elizabeth is glad to live with. Unlike the verbal -ing form, it takes articles and adjectives rather than objects: endless complaining, the constant complaining. In the singular it names the activity as a whole, while the plural, as in Craik, counts its separate instances.

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