correcting

Pluralcorrectings

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of correct.

   He is correcting the final proofs before the book goes to print.

   Correcting the data took longer than the analysts expected.

   Note

   The -ing form carries every sense of the verb with it. A teacher correcting papers is grading them, a parent correcting a child may be disciplining one, and an editor correcting proofs is removing errors. After be it builds the progressive (she is correcting the draft); elsewhere it fills noun slots as a gerund. Unlike the countable noun, the gerund takes a direct object and never a plural.

2. 2
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The process of making a correction to something.

   The correcting of the manuscript fell to a single overworked editor.

   Constant correcting of the figures delayed the report by a week.

   Similarrevision, editing, amendment

   Note

   A true noun, both countable and uncountable. Charles Bridges's The Christian Ministry (1844) speaks of "the correctings of the errors of our own inexperience." The of-phrase is what separates it from the verb's gerund: the correcting of the figures is the noun, while correcting the figures is the verb. Only the noun takes an article and a plural.

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