filling

Pluralfillings

1. 1
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The food placed inside a pie, pastry, sandwich, or similar dish.

   The baker piled cherry filling into the open tart shells.

   Leftover turkey makes a rich filling for the next day's pies.

   Similarstuffing

2. 2
   nouncountable

   Material used to fill a cavity in a tooth, or the result left after the cavity is filled.

   The new filling matched the color of her natural teeth.

   Modern fillings often use composite resin rather than metal.

   Similarrestoration

   Note

   The dentist's word covers both the material packed into a cavity and the finished repair it becomes. That is why it works before the job, as in a rapid-setting cement filling, and after it, as in a temporary filling that falls out. It is usually countable: you have a filling, or several fillings. Stopping names the same thing.

3. 3
   adjective

   Of food, substantial enough to leave you feeling full and no longer hungry.

   Beans and rice make a cheap, filling dinner for the whole family.

   The stew was so filling that no one had room for dessert.

   Similarsatisfying, substantial, hearty, heavy

   Oppositelight

   Note

   A true adjective rather than a participle, because it grades. Food can be fairly filling, more filling or the most filling. In Gandhi's The Story of My Experiments with Truth, oatmeal porridge is "fairly filling." A 1964 letter in Modern Railways pairs it with solid and cheap. To tell it from the verb, check for an object: the stew was filling is the adjective, while the stew was filling the pot is the verb.

4. 4
   noununcountable

   Any material used to fill a space, gap, or container.

   Builders used sand as filling beneath the new concrete slab.

   The gap behind the wall was packed with foam filling.

   Similarstuffing, padding, packing

5. 5
   verb

   Present participle of fill.

   He was filling out the form when the phone rang.

   Volunteers are filling sandbags ahead of the flood.

   Note

   The -ing form of fill does double duty. It is the participle of progressive tenses, and it is also a verbal noun. It keeps both of the verb's patterns: transitive (filling sandbags, filling an order) and intransitive (the hall was slowly filling). The same spelling also serves as the adjective for hearty food and as a family of nouns, so context decides which word you are reading.

6. 6
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The crosswise threads in a woven fabric, carried across the lengthwise warp; the woof.

   She chose a darker filling to contrast with the pale warp.

   The pattern emerged where filling and warp crossed at tight intervals.

   Similarweft, woof

   Oppositewarp

7. 7
   nouncountable

   Prepared wort added to a batch of ale to clarify and cleanse it during brewing.

   The cellarman poured a measured filling into each cask of ale.

   A second filling was needed before the ale finally ran clear.

8. 8
   nouncountable

   A religious experience understood as the Holy Spirit filling and indwelling a believer.

   The congregation sought a deeper filling during the week of prayer.

   He spoke of a sudden filling that left him weeping with joy.

   Note

   A term of Protestant theology, formed from the phrase being filled with the Holy Spirit. Unlike many names for religious experience, it can be counted. Zacharias Tanee Fomum distinguishes a believer's first filling from subsequent fillings. Raymond F. Culpepper's Understanding the Ministry of the Holy Spirit (2011) treats such language as synonymous with baptism in the Holy Spirit. Enduement and second baptism name the same experience.

Showing meanings only. Show all 8