examining

Pluralexaminings

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of examine.

   She spent the morning examining samples under the microscope.

   Examining the evidence took the jury several hours.

   Note

   The -ing form does double duty. After be it builds the progressive (she was examining samples). As a gerund it fills a noun's slot while still taking a direct object (examining the evidence took hours). After need it turns passive in meaning: my head needs examining means it needs to be examined. Every sense of examine carries over, from inspecting and checking health to testing and interrogating.

2. 2
   adjective

   Looking at someone or something closely and carefully, whether by habit or at a given moment.

   Like a jeweler peering at a gem, alert to the smallest flaw.

   The detective fixed an examining stare on the suspect's trembling hands.

   Her examining manner unsettled colleagues who preferred easy small talk.

   Similarsearching, probing, penetrating, inquiring

   Note

   Here the -ing form has hardened into a true adjective, and the test is grading. It takes very and more or most, which the participle cannot. Dinah Mulock Craik's The Little Lame Prince (1874) quotes a little girl calling a playfellow "a very examining boy". John Cleland in 1765 writes of people "not of either a very examining strain". It describes a habit of mind, not a single act of looking.

3. 3
   nouncountable

   The act or process of inspecting something closely to determine its nature or condition.

   A thorough examining of the engine revealed a cracked valve.

   Her examining of the manuscript uncovered several forged passages.

   Similarinspection, scrutiny, study, analysis, check

   Note

   A fully nominal use, set apart from the gerund by its grammar. It takes of rather than a direct object (the examining of the engine), and it can be counted and made plural. Thomas Belknap's 1866 testimony in Gillian & Gillian v. Clark speaks of "the examinings of the footings of the bookkeeper". In most writing, examination is the ordinary word for this.

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