dating
- 1A form of romantic courtship between two people, meant to find out whether they suit each other as partners or as a future spouse.
After his divorce, he wasn't sure he was ready for dating again.
Modern dating often begins online long before two people meet in person.
UsageMeans the whole activity: online dating, a dating app. For one evening out, say a date.
- 2Present participle of date, used in verb forms such as "have been dating" or "dating the bones."
He is dating a colleague he first met at a conference.
Researchers are dating the fossils with newly developed techniques.
UsageWith two people as the subject, no object is needed: they have been dating for a year.
Note
One spelling does two jobs here: the progressive verb (she is dating a colleague) and the gerund (dating him was a mistake). The same form also covers fixing a time and working out an age, the meaning behind the noun for estimating age.
- 3The process of working out how old something is, such as an artifact, a biological remnant, or a use of language, or the estimate that results.
Radiocarbon dating placed the wooden tools at roughly three thousand years old.
The dating of the manuscript relied on the style of its handwriting.
UsageThe method usually comes first, as in carbon dating; the thing dated follows of: the dating of a manuscript.
Note
Scholars count these. A single estimate is a dating, and several are datings, as in Niels Lynnerup's "the datings of human bones" in The Greenland Norse (1998). The method often goes in front as a modifier: dendrochronological dating works from tree rings, and by 1922 A. E. Douglass was already testing tree-ring dates against painstaking ring counts. Because each dating is an estimate, writers often judge how reliable one dating is compared with another.
Less common meaning
- 4The act of fixing the day on which an event or transaction is to happen or take effect.
By negotiating extended dating with its suppliers, the retailer could stock up for the holidays without paying until February.
Seasonal dating lets a garden center receive its stock in winter but start the payment terms only when spring sales begin.
Note
Trade gives this sense its most common use: datings are payment terms that fix when payment falls due. Seasonal datings let retailers pay after a busy selling period. C.O.D. datings, Duncan and Phillips's retailing textbook observes, are so disliked by buyers that sellers use them only with doubtful customers. Unlike the estimate of age, which looks back, this sense fixes a date ahead.
Checked 6 Nov 2026 · 3 facts
- They are payment terms, which can include cash terms. C.O.D. does not extend credit. jtorrez.uprrp.edu
- Seasonal datings allow payment after the peak selling period. home.ubalt.edu
- Duncan and Phillips's retailing textbook says buyers dislike C.O.D. datings and sellers reserve them for doubtful customers. en.wiktionary.org
Showing meanings only.
dating is a form of date
date, verb: To go out with someone romantically, on one or more dates or in a steady relationship. Full entry
- Spelling
- date → dating: drop the e, add -ing
Practice
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