crowning

Pluralcrownings (some meanings)

1. 1
   adjective

   Greatest or most outstanding; representing the highest point of a series or achievement.

   The peace treaty was the crowning success of his years in office.

   Restoring the cathedral's spire was the crowning task of the whole project.

   Similarsupreme, ultimate, greatest, consummate

   Note

   The figure comes from the verb's meaning "to complete, to perfect": the crowning thing is the one that tops a whole series. It sits before its noun, as in crowning achievement or crowning victory, and it need not be praise. In John Buchan's The Outgoing of the Tide (1902), Alison's crowning offense is the worst failing in the Devil's eyes. The word marks the culmination of whatever is being counted, good or bad.

2. 2
   verb

   Present participle of crown.

   The committee is crowning this year's champion at tonight's banquet.

   Crowning the hilltop, an old stone chapel overlooked the valley.

   Note

   The -ing form does double duty. After be, it builds the progressive: the committee is crowning a champion, or the baby's head is crowning. On its own, it opens participial phrases like crowning the hilltop, where it carries the verb's meaning of forming the topmost part. When it names the act itself, it shades into the noun for the act.

3. 3
   adjective

   Situated at the top or summit, forming the highest part of something.

   The crowning spire of the castle was visible from the far side of the valley.

   Snow still clung to the crowning peak long after the lower slopes had thawed.

   Similartopmost, uppermost, highest

   Oppositelowest, bottommost

4. 4
   noununcountable

   In vaginal birth, the stage at which the baby's head stays visible at the opening of the vulva rather than slipping back between contractions.

   The doctor announced crowning and coached her to ease the head out gently.

   At crowning, supporting the perineum can help prevent tearing.

   Note

   Obstetrics borrows the image of a head appearing like a crown. Crowning is a point within the second stage of labor. The widest part of the fetal head stretches the vulva and no longer slips back between contractions. Clinicians usually use the word without an article, saying a mother has reached crowning or that something happens at crowning.

5. 5
   nouncountable

   The act of placing a crown on someone, whether in a royal ceremony or as another kind of honor.

   The crowning of the festival's harvest queen drew the whole village to the square.

   His friends staged a mock crowning to celebrate his retirement.

   Similarcoronation

   Note

   The verbal noun reaches as far as the verb does. In Fraser's Magazine of 1860, small bands of men carry out "outflankings and crownings of hills," seizing the heights with no monarch in sight. Any meaning of crown, from honoring a winner to topping a summit, can become a crowning. It takes a plural when the acts are counted one by one.

6. 6
   nouncountable

   A coronation; the formal ceremony at which a new monarch begins their reign.

   The crowning took place in the ancient abbey before guests from many nations.

   Medieval crownings were often followed by days of feasting and ceremony.

   Similarcoronation, enthronement, investiture

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