cornering

Pluralcornerings

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of corner.

   The reporters were cornering the senator near the exit.

   Cornering the market in rare stamps made him wealthy.

   Note

   One spelling carries every sense of the verb, so context decides which corner is meant. With a person as object, it means trapping, as in cornering a witness. In trade, it means cornering a market by controlling enough of a commodity to set its price. In motoring, it means taking the bend: a car cornering at speed. As a gerund it also names how well a vehicle handles turns. The act of trapping someone and decorative corner work are separate nouns with the same spelling.

2. 2
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The act of forcing someone into a position from which there is no escape.

   The cornering of the fugitive ended a week-long manhunt.

   A skillful cornering of the witness forced an honest answer.

   Similartrapping, entrapment, capture

   Note

   Not always a chase. In Maria Edgeworth's "Manoeuvring" (Tales of Fashionable Life, 1809–1812), a schemer's cornerings sit beside her asides, whisperings and innuendoes. They are the social trick of drawing someone into a corner for a private word. That plural, countable use suits drawing-room intrigue. The singular with of (the cornering of a suspect) suits pursuit and pressure.

3. 3
   noununcountable

   A piece of decorative work that forms or finishes a corner.

   The bookbinder finished the volume with leather cornering at the boards.

   Ornate metal cornering decorated each edge of the antique cabinet.

   Note

   Ornament for the angles where surfaces meet, and a word that sits comfortably in the plural. The Art Journal of 1844 observes that cornerings are rarely used when the ceilings are not decorated. That places them in interior decoration as a finishing touch that belongs to an ornamented scheme, not one added to a plain surface.

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