dropping

Pluraldroppings

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of drop.

   Dropping the vase, she gasped as it shattered on the tile.

   He is dropping hints about his plans for the weekend.

   Note

   The -ing form does two jobs. After be it builds the progressive (he is dropping hints); on its own it heads a verbal phrase that can take a direct object (dropping the vase). That object is the quickest way to tell it from the noun for falling, which takes an article or of instead. Only the noun forms a plural, and droppings belongs to the excrement sense.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   A piece of animal excrement; a small lump of dung.

   A fresh rabbit dropping on the path told us the warren was nearby.

   The gardener swept the goose droppings off the patio every morning.

   Similarpellet

   Note

   Mostly a plural word: droppings is what people find on paths, patios and windowsills. The singular names one piece, and it usually comes with the animal in front, as in a rabbit dropping. The same pattern gives goose droppings, bird droppings and mouse droppings, with the animal's name working as a modifier rather than a possessive.

3. 3
   noununcountable

   The act of something falling or being let fall.

   The referee signaled the start of play with the dropping of his hand.

   Workers carefully timed the dropping of supplies from the helicopter.

   Similarlowering, release

   Note

   Dickens can count these acts. In The Pickwick Papers (1836), Mr. Dowler makes for the bed only "after several droppings asleep". The plural treats each fall as a separate event, and it carries the verb's phrase along with it, so drop asleep becomes droppings asleep. In everyday prose the sense more often appears as the dropping of something.

4. 4
   nouncountable

   Something that has been dropped; a single droplet.

   A dropping of candle grease hardened on the wooden sill.

   She caught a dropping of honey on her spoon before it reached the floor.

   Similardroplet, drip, blob

   Note

   Here the dropping is of liquid. Henry Hunt's A peep into a prison (1821) describes "the droppings of water from the roof" driven by the wind against a wall. Because the bare plural droppings is the usual form of the word for animal dung, this sense reads most safely with its substance named: a dropping of wax, droppings of water.

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