freaking

SayFREE-kingUS/ˈfɹikɪŋ//ˈfɹiːkɪŋ/

6 meanings of freaking

1
veryadverbslangeuphemisticUS
A milder, euphemistic substitute for the adverb fucking, used to add force to a word or statement.
It's freaking freezing out here, and I left my coat in the car.
She freaking aced the exam without even studying.
Similarfrigging, fricking, flipping, effing, flaming
Note
As an adverb it has two positions: before an adjective, often after so (so freaking smart), or straight before a verb, where it leans on the whole action: I freaking hate it here; he freaking ran into a police station. It carries the same American, slangy weight as the adjective, so it suits speech and dialogue rather than formal prose.
2
annoyedadjectiveslangeuphemisticUS
A milder, euphemistic substitute for the adjective fucking, placed before a noun to show annoyance or add emphasis.
I've been on hold with the freaking cable company for an hour.
Somebody turn that freaking alarm off!
Similarfrigging, fricking, flipping, effing, flaming
Note
This is a minced oath, the swear word bent just far enough out of shape to pass where the original would shock. Fricking, frigging and flipping keep its opening sound, while effing keeps only the first letter, said aloud. Chiefly American, it sits before a noun (my freaking nerves) and is still slang: fine among friends, out of place in formal writing.
3
doing (action)verb
Present participle and gerund of freak.
The crowd started freaking out when the stage lights suddenly went dark.
The loud thunder kept freaking the dog out all night.
Note
After be it shows something in progress, and in its slang sense it often comes with out: the crowd started freaking out. The same form also carries the older, dated meaning of marking with streaks of color, as when a sunset is freaking the clouds with pink, which matches the streak in a pattern.

Less common meanings

4
sexual dancenoununcountable
A sexually charged style of dancing, similar to daggering.
The school added a ban on freaking before the winter formal.
A few couples drifted into freaking once the DJ switched to dancehall.
Similargrinding
5
color patchnoundatedcountable
A streak, or a patch of varied color, running through a pattern.
The iris opens a pale lilac, with darker freakings toward the throat.
Each feather showed a faint bronze freaking along its edge.
Similarstreak
Note
A dated word from descriptions of color, found mostly in the plural. Hildegarde Hawthorne's Corsica, the Surprising Island (1926) sees "peacock freakings" on the sea from a height, and My Garden in 1937 pairs "freakings and freckles" on flowers shading from red to maroon. It belongs to careful written description rather than to speech.
6
strangeadjectiveobsolete
Strange and unpredictable, given to sudden odd whims; freakish.
Thence home and visited Sir J. Minnes, who continues ill, but is something better, there he told me what a mad freaking fellow Sir Ellis Layton hath been, and is, and once at Antwerp was really mad.
1665, Samuel Pepys, Diary and Correspondence of Samuel Pepys
Note
Samuel Pepys could still use it in 1665, writing of "a mad freaking fellow" who at Antwerp "was really mad." The adjective has long since dropped out of use, and read now the phrase sounds like the softened swear word, which says nothing about oddness, so a modern reader has to hear it as Pepys meant it: whimsical and unpredictable.

freaking is a form of freak

freak, verb: To react in an extreme, panicky, or irrational way, from shock, distress, or the effects of a drug; also, to make someone react this way (often 'freak out', 'freak someone out'). Full entry

Forms: freakfreaks he/she/itfreaking -ing formfreaked past tense, past participle
Spelling: freak → freaking: add -ing

Practice

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