coppering

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle of copper.

   The crew were coppering the bottom of the vessel to keep out shipworm.

   Coppering the boiler tubes took the metalworkers several days.

   Note

   The -ing form does two jobs. As a participle it follows be: the crew were coppering the hull. As a gerund it heads its own phrase and still takes a direct object: coppering the tubes took days. Once it takes the and of, as in the coppering of the hull, it has become the noun for the act. Only that noun can be made plural, as copperings.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The process of coating or sheathing something in a layer of copper.

   The coppering of warship hulls became standard practice in the eighteenth-century navy.

   Careful coppering protected the vessel's timbers from boring worms.

   Similarsheathing, plating

   Note

   Like sheathing, this noun can name both a job and what the job leaves behind; here it names the job. Read it as the act when an of-phrase names what was covered (the coppering of the hull) or when it follows verbs of doing, starting or finishing. Read it as the copper covering itself when it is something that can be inspected, damaged or peeled away.

3. 3
   noununcountable

   A protective layer or sheath of copper covering a surface.

   Divers inspected the coppering for damage after the long voyage.

   The coppering had peeled away near the keel, exposing bare timber.

   Similarsheathing, plating, sheath

Showing meanings only. Show all 3