filing

Pluralfilings (some meanings)

1. 1
   noununcountable

   The act of storing documents in an archive or ordered system so they can be retrieved later.

   The filing of company records is handled by the records department.

   Careful filing of the contracts meant the lawyers found them in seconds.

   Similararchiving, storage

2. 2
   nouncountable

   A small particle removed from a surface by a file or similar tool; a shaving.

   A stray filing lodged itself under his fingernail.

   Iron filings line up along the field of a magnet.

   Similarshaving, particle, sliver

3. 3
   nouncountable

   A document that has been officially submitted and placed on record.

   The court rejected the filing because a signature was missing.

   Investors reviewed the company's quarterly filings for warning signs.

   Similarsubmission, document, report

   Note

   The countable result of an act. Where the act of archiving names a process, this sense names a thing you can point to, so it pluralizes freely: quarterly filings, a stack of filings. It belongs to courtroom and corporate language. Jon Swaine's 2018 report in The Guardian rests on what Mueller said "in a court filing," which is the collocation to know.

4. 4
   verb

   Present participle of file.

   The clerk is filing the morning's paperwork.

   Workers are filing the rough edges off the metal plates.

   Note

   As a gerund it still behaves like a verb and takes its object directly (filing the contracts), while the noun for archiving needs of (the filing of the contracts). Used without an object, it means submitting a formal request, as in filing for divorce. A journalist who is filing from abroad is sending an article to the paper.

Showing meanings only. Show all 4