depending

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of depend.

   Depending on the test results, the team will adjust its strategy.

   The final cost varies, depending on how many guests attend.

   Note

   The -ing form most often opens a conditional phrase: depending on the weather, depending on how it melts. Here it carries depend's sense of being contingent, followed by on and then a noun or a how clause. Because depend also means to trust or rely, the same spelling covers depending on a friend. The verb's literary meaning of hanging down survives in the heraldic adjective.

2. 2
   adjective

   Suspended from another element of a design, such as a shield, a helmet, or a chain.

   The royal crest, depending from the helmet, swayed as he rode into the courtyard.

   Each knight wore a small badge depending from a heavy gold chain.

   Similarhanging, suspended, dangling

   Note

   Heraldry keeps the most literal picture inside depend: something hanging down from whatever holds it. Blazon uses it for a badge on a chain or a crest from a helmet. It takes from, which keeps it apart from the "contingent on" participle. Arthur Charles Fox-Davies's Armorial Families (1899) has the badge of Lyon King of Arms depending from a gold chain. The adjective is not comparable: a badge either hangs or it does not.

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