detecting

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of detect.

   The new software is detecting threats far faster than the old system did.

   Detecting early signs of disease can save a patient's life.

   Note

   The verb form does two jobs. After be it builds the progressive (the software is detecting threats). At the head of a phrase it is a gerund that keeps its direct object (detecting early signs of disease). That bare object is the quickest way to tell it from the countable noun, which needs of instead. Without any object, it can carry detect's informal sense of doing a detective's work.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   An instance of finding or uncovering something hidden, unclear, or not easily noticed.

   The detecting of fraud in the accounts led to a full audit.

   Successful detecting of the hairline fault depended on a careful inspection.

   Similardetection, discovery, identification, uncovering

   Note

   Unlike the verb form, this noun can be counted and made plural: detectings. Gilbert Ryle's The Concept of Mind sets it in a row of -ing plurals, "detectings, scannings or inspectings", to name separate mental acts. That is where the form earns its place. Used of a single act, it usually comes with the and an of-phrase naming what is found, as in the detecting of fraud.

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