disciplining

Pluraldisciplinings

1. 1
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The use of punishment to force someone to behave in a certain way.

   The company's harsh disciplining of staff led to a wave of resignations.

   Disciplining through fear tends to breed resentment rather than genuine respect.

   Similarpunishment, correction, chastisement, penalization

   Oppositereward, praise

   Note

   Where discipline names the order or control itself, disciplining names the act of punishing that enforces it: the step taken, not the state achieved. It works as a mass noun for the practice and as a count noun for particular episodes, with the plural disciplinings for separate instances. Unlike the verb form, it usually introduces the person punished with of rather than taking them as a direct object.

2. 2
   verb

   Present participle of discipline.

   The manager spent the morning disciplining employees who kept arriving late.

   Disciplining children consistently is harder than most new parents expect.

   Note

   A single -ing form does two jobs here. After be it is a participle (she was disciplining the team). In noun positions it is a gerund (disciplining children takes patience). Either way it keeps the verb's transitive habit and wants an object. It also carries every meaning of discipline, from training by practice to punishing to regain control. Once it settles into a countable noun, it becomes the noun for punishment.

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