cycling

Pluralcyclings (some meanings)

1. 1
   noununcountable

   The activity of riding bicycles or other cycles, whether for transport, sport, exercise, recreation, or travel.

   Cycling has grown popular as cities build more dedicated bike lanes.

   On vacation they explored the coastline by cycling from village to village.

   Similarbiking

   Note

   The broad, everyday activity covers commuting, touring, and riding for exercise or pleasure. It is an uncountable noun, so it takes no article: people go cycling or take up cycling, never a cycling. Biking covers much the same ground. When the talk turns to races, teams and results, the word has narrowed into the competitive sport.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   A sport in which participants ride and race bicycles or other cycles.

   Professional cycling demands years of training and a powerful team behind each rider.

   Track cycling rewards explosive sprinting, while road cycling favors endurance.

   Similarbiking

   Note

   Narrowed to competition, the word often works as a modifier: a cycling fan, a cycling team, cycling news. Its talk is the talk of the race, where a breakaway is a rider or group pulling clear of the pack. Cycle sport and race cycling name the same thing more explicitly, and its branches take a prefix, as in track cycling and road cycling.

3. 3
   verb

   Present participle of cycle.

   He was cycling across the country to raise money for charity.

   Tourists were cycling slowly along the coastal path.

   Note

   The -ing form carries every meaning of the verb, not just the bicycle one. A technician cycling a router turns its power off and back on, and a hockey team cycling the puck keeps it moving in a loop along the boards in the offensive zone. As a gerund it fills noun positions (cycling to work saves money), which is where it shades into the activity of riding.

4. 4
   nouncountable

   A repeated action or process that follows a regular, recurring pattern.

   Like the seasons returning year after year in the same order.

   The cycling of carbon between plants and the atmosphere is a natural process.

   Engineers studied the rapid cycling of the machine's power supply.

   Similarcirculation

   Note

   Unlike the riding senses, this one is countable and has a plural, cyclings, because each run of a repeating process can be counted on its own. It suits technical descriptions of things that go round and come back, such as the cycling of nutrients or of a power supply. Cyclism is a synonym, though few readers will meet it.

5. 5
   adjective

   Undergoing a motion or process that repeats over and over in a regular cycle.

   A cycling compressor that switches on and off every few minutes often points to a faulty thermostat.

   Year after year, the cycling seasons brought the herds back down into the valley.

   Similarrecurring, periodic, repeating

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