entering

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of enter.

   Visitors entering the gallery must leave their bags at the front desk.

   Entering her thirties, she finally felt settled in her career.

   Note

   The -ing form carries every use of enter, physical or figurative: entering a port, entering data, entering a profession. Without an auxiliary it often stands in for a relative clause, so that those entering it means those who enter it. With be it builds progressive tenses (she is entering her details). Once it takes a determiner or a plural, it has become the noun for the act.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The act of going into a place, or of joining a group or activity.

   Police charged the pair with breaking and entering after the break-in.

   The entering of votes into the system continued past midnight.

   Similarentry

   Note

   It can take a plural, enterings, which is useful when each act must count separately. The Code of Federal Regulations (1987) excludes from a "sale" any "enterings into contracts." The noun keeps the into of entering into an agreement. Like the verb, it covers joining a contract as readily as walking through a door.

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