franking

Pluralfrankings

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of frank.

   The mailroom was franking hundreds of tax notices an hour before the deadline.

   Critics attacked the lawmakers for franking campaign letters at public expense.

   Note

   Behind the -ing form stand two postal verbs: putting a frank on an envelope, and exempting a letter from postage altogether, the sense behind a franking privilege. The same verb can also mean shutting an animal in a sty to fatten it. None of these carries the candor of the adjective frank: franking a letter says nothing about honesty.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   Any authorized device or marking, such as a postage stamp, printed impression, code, or label, applied to mail to show it qualifies for postal service.

   A red meter franking had replaced the usual stamp on the company's letters.

   The clerk rejected the parcel because its franking did not match the weight.

   Note

   Here the word names the mark itself rather than the act of making it, and it counts like any noun: one envelope bears a franking, a sack of mail bears frankings. When the act is meant, as in a mailroom franking letters all morning, the word is the verb at work, which takes an object and never a plural.

3. 3
   nounAustraliauncountable

   A corporate tax system in which some or all of the tax a company pays can be passed to its shareholders as a tax credit, reducing the income tax due on their distributions.

   The super fund's returns were lifted by franking on its Australian share holdings.

   The opposition's plan to cut cash refunds of franking credits angered many retirees.

   Note

   Australian tax talk meets the word in franking credits, which shareholders set against their own income tax. The related adjective gives fully franked dividends, paid from profit already taxed in full, and partly franked ones, which carry credit for only some of that tax. The arrangement is also known as dividend imputation, since the company's tax is imputed to its owners.

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