exploring

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of explore.

   The team is exploring several possible solutions to the problem.

   Exploring unfamiliar cities is one of her favorite pastimes.

   Note

   The verb form keeps the constructions of explore. It can take a direct object, as in Carey McWilliams's North from Mexico (1948): "while De Anza was exploring the Bay of San Francisco." It can also stand alone, as in out exploring. After be it forms the progressive. Without be it heads a gerund phrase that can serve as a subject. The old meaning "to seek for someone" is obsolete, so exploring for someone is no longer used.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The act of searching through or moving around an unfamiliar place in order to learn what it holds.

   A lifetime of exploring had given the old sailor stories from every continent.

   The grant funds deep-sea exploring along the volcanic ridges.

   Similarexploration, travel

   Note

   Unlike the verb form, the noun can be counted: its plural is explorings, a word for separate ventures, as in her early explorings of the coast. It takes adjectives and of-phrases (deep-sea exploring, the exploring of caves), while the gerund takes a direct object (exploring caves). That object test is the quickest way to tell the two apart.

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