# fighting

Pronunciation: say "FY-ting" /ˈfaɪtɪŋ/

## Verb

1. Present participle and gerund of fight. — present participle and gerund of fight
   - Simple: Present participle and gerund of fight. Use this form for actions happening right now or for the activity itself.
   - _Firefighters spent the night fighting the blaze on the hillside._
   - _She is fighting to keep her small business open through the downturn._

## Noun

2. Struggle between opposing people or groups, whether by violence or some other form of conflict.
   - Simple: The use of force or violence between people or groups.
   - _Decades of fighting destroyed much of the country's farmland._
   - _Police were called to break up fighting outside the bar around midnight._
3. A fight or battle; a particular occasion on which people fight.
   - Simple: A battle, or a time and place where people fight each other.
   - _The fighting at Antietam lasted from dawn until late afternoon._
   - _Witnesses described the fighting outside the stadium as the worst the city had seen in years._

## Adjective

4. Currently involved in a war or some other kind of conflict.
   - Simple: Taking part in a war or another kind of fight.
   - _By winter, both fighting armies were short of food and ammunition._
   - _The fighting factions within the party refused to appear together in public._
5. Apt to provoke a fight.
   - Simple: Likely to make someone angry enough to start a fight.
   - _Insulting a man's cooking is fighting talk in this kitchen._
   - _His remark about the referee's eyesight struck the crowd as fighting words._

## Origin

**Meanings 1, 4–5** — This form comes from Middle English feghtyng and Old English feohtende, the present participle of Proto-Germanic *fehtaną ("to comb, struggle, contend with"); it is essentially "fight" plus the suffix "-ing".
**Meanings 2–3** — This form comes from Middle English fightyng and Old English fihtung ("fighting"), equivalent to "fight" plus the suffix "-ing".

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/fighting (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).