decorating

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of decorate.

   Decorating the hall took the whole team most of the morning.

   She is decorating the nursery before the baby arrives.

   Note

   One form carries every meaning of decorate, from hanging ornaments to pinning a medal on a soldier and, in programming, extending a method with further code. Used without an object it usually means doing up an interior: "we're decorating this weekend" needs no room named. As a gerund it still takes a direct object (decorating the hall), which is what separates it from the plain noun.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The act or work of making a room, building, or object more attractive by adding ornament, color, or furnishings.

   The decorating took three weekends, but new paint and curtains transformed the nursery.

   She built a career in residential decorating after years of practice.

   Similarrefurbishment

   Note

   A noun that can be counted when it names an occasion rather than a task. Leonard J. Lea, in Views from the Mountain (1961), sets decoratings beside bazaars, banquets and celebratings, each one an event people gather for. Meaning the work itself, it stays singular (the decorating, residential decorating) and takes an article where the gerund would take an object.

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