enforcing
- 1Present participle of enforce.
The city spent months enforcing the recycling ordinance across every neighborhood.
Enforcing the curfew proved difficult without enough officers on duty.
Note
The -ing form does double duty. In "officers were enforcing the ban" it is a participle after be; in "enforcing the ban was costly" it is a gerund, a noun subject that still takes its own object. In current use it means imposing or upholding a rule, not necessarily by force. Older uses are obsolete, such as enforcing a town with troops or enforcing oneself, meaning to try hard.
enforcing is a form of enforce
enforce, verb: To keep up, impose, or bring a rule, law, or agreement into effect, not necessarily by physical force. Full entry
- Spelling
- enforce → enforcing: drop the e, add -ing
Use it in a sentence
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