faulting

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of fault.

   Critics kept faulting the design for its poor safety record.

   Faulting the referee won't change the final score.

   Note

   One spelling does two grammatical jobs. After a form of be it is the progressive (critics were faulting the design), and on its own it is a gerund standing as subject or object. Most often it carries the transitive "blame" meaning of fault, usually with for naming the failing. The intransitive "fracture" meaning of the verb is the one behind the geologist's noun.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The geological process in which rock fractures and the two sides shift relative to each other, forming a fault.

   Repeated faulting along the boundary produced a network of fractures across the basin.

   Geologists mapped the faulting that uplifted the mountain range.

   Similarfracturing, displacement

   Note

   Here the -ing form has settled into a full noun, one that can even take a plural. Faultings counts separate episodes of fracture. The singular, uncountable use names the process in general, as in repeated faulting along a boundary. Unlike the verb form, it takes no object and never follows be as a progressive. It is a noun of the field, not of everyday blame.

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