dragging

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle of drag.

   The tugboat spent the morning dragging the barge upriver.

   Dragging the file into the folder copies it instantly.

   Note

   Here the -ing form does the verb's work. It builds progressives (the tugboat was dragging the barge) and carries the full range of drag, from hauling a load to moving an item on screen with a button held down. With an object it means pulling. Without one it means going on slowly and wearily, as when an afternoon is dragging. The same spelling also serves the noun for the act.

2. 2
   adjective

   Tending to trail along a surface or move with a heavy, pulling motion.

   A dragging anchor failed to hold the boat in place.

   The patient's dragging foot was a clear sign of nerve damage.

   Similartrailing

   Note

   The literal sense the others grow from, built simply from drag plus -ing. It describes motion that pulls heavily against a surface. Herman Melville in 1852 has a coach make "ponderous, dragging trundlings" over a rough road. From that weight came the figurative uses, the "dull" meaning and the "too long" meaning: a dull talk or an endless meeting feels like something hauled along.

3. 3
   adjective

   Tedious and dull; lacking energy or anything to hold interest.

   The dragging seminar left the audience fidgeting in their seats.

   Critics called the film a dragging, lifeless affair.

   Similartedious, dull, boring, slow, plodding

   Oppositelively, gripping, engaging, exciting

4. 4
   adjective

   Continuing far longer than it should, with no end in sight.

   A dragging negotiation stretched well past midnight.

   The dragging final act tested the audience's patience.

   Similarprotracted, interminable, endless, prolonged, lengthy

   Oppositebrief, quick

5. 5
   noununcountable

   Gerund of drag.

   The dragging of the nets across the seabed damaged the coral.

   Repeated dragging of the furniture scuffed the hardwood.

   Note

   Like many gerunds, it works as both a mass noun and a count noun. The mass use names the activity, as in the dragging of the nets. The count use takes a plural. Charles Edward Morrison's Earth Roads (1914) speaks of "the first few draggings" of a road surface. Keep it apart from the noun drag, which names the resisting force itself or a device that is dragged, not the act of dragging.

6. 6
   noununcountable

   A form of motor racing in which vehicles compete over a short, straight course.

   Police cracked down on dragging along the riverfront strip.

   Saturday-night dragging at the county strip drew racers and their souped-up cars from across the state.

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