depositing

Pluraldepositings

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of deposit.

   The slowing river is depositing silt along its lower banks.

   Depositing the funds took only a few minutes through the online portal.

   Note

   A participle that does double duty. After a form of be it builds the progressive (the river is depositing silt), and at the head of a clause it works as a gerund (depositing the funds took minutes). Either way it keeps the verb's direct object, which sets it apart from the countable noun. One form covers laying sediment down and putting money into an account, and the object tells you which is meant.

2. 2
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The act or process of laying material down, or of matter settling out and gathering in a place.

   The depositing of silt at the river mouth created a wide, fertile delta.

   Over centuries, the steady depositing of limestone formed the cavern's floor.

   Similardeposition, sedimentation, accumulation, settling, buildup

   Oppositeerosion

   Note

   The noun names the laying-down itself, and unlike the verb form it can be counted. Mark Twain's Some Learned Fables for Good Old Boys and Girls (1875) speaks of "floodings of the earth and depositings of limestone strata", with each depositing a separate episode in the rock's history. As a mass noun it takes an article and of (the depositing of silt). As the gerund it takes a direct object instead: depositing silt.

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