forwarding

1. 1
   noununcountable

   The act of sending something on to another destination or recipient.

   The forwarding of confidential documents requires written approval from a manager.

   Automatic forwarding of incoming calls kept the office reachable after hours.

   Similartransmission, redirection, relaying, transfer

   Note

   Unlike the verb form, this noun can be counted, and specialists use it that way. Modern Railways (1964) has oil companies joining in rail forwardings from a South Wales port. Barrett, Silverman and Byrnes's SSH, The Secure Shell (2005) speaks of remote port forwardings, each a separate arrangement. In the singular it usually takes of before what is sent: the forwarding of mail, of calls, of documents.

2. 2
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of forward.

   The assistant is forwarding all inquiries to the legal department.

   Forwarding sensitive files without permission can get an employee fired.

   Note

   One spelling carries every sense of the verb behind it: forwarding a letter or email to a third party, forwarding a cause or a career, and the bookbinder's forwarding of a book by sewing its sections and attaching the boards. In Caribbean use it can also be intransitive, meaning arriving. As a gerund it takes a direct object (forwarding the files). Once it takes a plural, it has become the countable noun.

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