departing

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle of depart.

   Passengers departing on the morning flight should arrive two hours early.

   The ship is departing from the north dock at noon.

   Note

   The -ing form carries every use of depart, so context decides which is meant. Usually it means leaving, with or without an object (departing the harbor, departing from the harbor). Departing from a rule or a plan means deviating from it, and in euphemistic use departing can mean dying. The same spelling also serves as an adjective and as the noun for the act of leaving.

2. 2
   adjective

   Leaving or in the process of leaving a place.

   Departing passengers filed slowly toward the boarding gate.

   The departing manager spent her last day thanking the staff.

   Similaroutgoing

   Oppositeincoming

   Note

   Here the word describes the one who is going: a departing train, departing passengers, a departing manager. It is easy to blur with the "at the moment of leaving" sense, which describes what happens as someone goes, such as departing words or a departing wave. A quick test helps: a departing train is itself leaving, but departing words are not going anywhere.

3. 3
   noununcountable

   The act by which a person or thing goes away.

   The general's departing from the capital triggered widespread panic.

   Their departing was delayed by heavy snow on the roads.

   Similardeparture, exit, withdrawal

   Oppositearrival

   Note

   The gerund turned full noun, able to take a plural: departings. Lance J. Rips, in Lines of Thought (2011), pairs it with "approachings" and "touchings" to describe shapes moving on a display as bare motions, with no suggestion that one caused another. That is where the plural is at home: lining up movements as separate events to be counted and compared.

4. 4
   adjective

   Occurring at the moment of leaving.

   With a departing wave, she stepped onto the platform.

   His departing glance lingered on the empty house.

   Similarfarewell, final, last

   Oppositewelcoming

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