delivering

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of deliver.

   Volunteers spent the morning delivering supplies to flood-stricken neighborhoods.

   Delivering the keynote address, she paused to let the audience react.

   Note

   One spelling, two jobs in the sentence. As a participle it builds progressive tenses (they were delivering supplies) or opens a modifying phrase. As a gerund it acts as a noun yet still takes a direct object (delivering babies is her trade). That bare object is the test that separates it from the countable noun, which needs of: the delivering of the verdict.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The act of conveying something to its destination or handing it over to a recipient.

   The delivering of the verdict took several tense minutes in the packed courtroom.

   Her careful delivering of the bad news softened its impact on the family.

   Similardelivery

   Note

   A noun that counts, so it takes a plural: deliverings. The plural is where it becomes interesting. Cook and Rice's Spinoza on Mind and Body (2003) speaks of "the deliverings of our senses," meaning whatever perception hands over to the mind rather than anything carried to a doorstep. In plainer prose it usually appears with the and of, as in the delivering of a verdict.

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