cradling

Pluralcradlings

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of cradle.

   The goalkeeper lay on the grass, cradling his injured wrist against his chest.

   Low hills cradling the village keep it sheltered from the worst of the wind.

   Note

   Cradle loses its final e before -ing, and the form that results often opens a phrase saying what someone is doing at the same moment: he waited by the window, cradling a cup. It stretches easily beyond arms and babies to anything that holds something as if protecting it, so hills cradling a village or hands cradling a mug are both natural English.

2. 2
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The act of holding a child, or something treated like one, gently and protectively.

   Hours of cradling and rocking finally settled the restless infant.

   Young monkeys receive fewer cradlings from their mothers once they start to explore on their own.

   Note

   Everyday speech treats the act as uncountable, as in hours of cradling and rocking, but the study of animal behavior turns it into an event to be counted. Social Communication among Primates (1967) records about four thousand cradlings among five mother-infant pairs over each infant's first fifteen weeks. The plural is the observer's mark: each hold becomes one tally.

3. 3
   noununcountable

   In carpentry, the framework in an arched or coved ceiling to which the laths are nailed.

   The carpenters shaped the cradling to follow the curve of the vaulted hall.

   Once the cradling was in place, laths were nailed across it and plastered over.

   Note

   Nobody sees it once the plaster is on, yet the curve of a coved or arched ceiling depends on it. In a paneled ceiling the frame need not stand alone: Thomas Tredgold's Elementary Principles of Carpentry describes the main ribs forming the core for the cradling, so the laths are nailed to framing built around those ribs.

4. 4
   noununcountable

   In coopering, the cutting of a cask lengthwise into two pieces so it can pass a narrow place, after which the halves are joined and rehooped.

   The cask was too wide for the cellar door, so the cooper recommended cradling.

   After the cradling, the two halves were fitted back together and fresh hoops were driven on.

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