drinking

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of drink.

   She swallowed her coffee too quickly, drinking it before it had cooled.

   The hikers were drinking from a cold mountain stream.

   Note

   The verb form does two jobs. With a helping verb it builds continuous tenses (they were drinking from the stream). Without one it acts as a noun (drinking too fast gives you hiccups). Drink can stand without an object, so an unqualified "he has been drinking" usually points to alcohol, the same drift found in the noun for a drinking session.

2. 2
   adjective

   Safe or suitable for people to consume as a beverage.

   Officials tested whether the well still supplied drinking water.

   After the flood, drinking water had to be trucked into the region.

   Similarpotable, drinkable

   Note

   Here the word stands before a noun and describes the liquid itself: drinking water is water fit to swallow. Compare the "drinking glass" use, where the word describes what you drink from, not what you drink. The two look identical in front of a noun, so the noun decides. A liquid takes this reading; a vessel or fixture takes the other.

3. 3
   noununcountable

   An act or session in which beverages, especially alcoholic ones, are consumed.

   A night of heavy drinking left the whole crew exhausted the next day.

   Years of steady drinking eventually caught up with him.

   Note

   Middle English already had the word, built just as it looks: drink plus -ing. When nothing names what is being drunk, it almost always means alcohol. "Some say drinking is a vice" needs no further word to be understood. It can also be counted, with drinkings meaning separate sessions, and its synonym potation covers the same ground.

4. 4
   adjective

   Designed or used for the purpose of drinking from.

   Each place setting included a drinking glass and a small water jug.

   Travelers refilled their bottles at a public drinking fountain.

5. 5
   adjective

   Relating to the consumption of alcohol, particularly when excessive.

   Her doctor warned her that the drinking sessions were harming her liver.

   He blamed his weekend drinking culture for the missed deadlines.

6. 6
   adjective

   Habitually consuming alcohol to the point of dependence.

   Neighbors described him as a drinking man long before the accident.

   Their drinking father spent most of his wages at the tavern.

   Similaralcoholic

   Oppositeteetotal, sober

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