furthering

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of further.

   The grant aims at furthering research into rare diseases.

   The committee is furthering its goals through public outreach.

   Note

   Only the verb further, meaning to help forward or promote, has an -ing form. The adjective and adverb (further away, further questions) have none, so furthering always means advancing something and never distance. It is transitive and takes its object directly: furthering research, furthering a cause. That sets it apart from the noun, which needs of, as in the furthering of literacy.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The act of advancing or promoting something; furtherance.

   The treaty was signed in the furthering of peace between the two nations.

   Public libraries play a key role in the furthering of literacy.

   Similaradvancement, promotion, fostering

   Oppositehindrance, obstruction

   Note

   Unlike the verb form, this noun can be counted. The plural furtherings names separate pushes forward, and it pairs naturally with its opposite. George Eliot sets "the possible thwartings and furtherings of circumstance" side by side in Middlemarch (1871): the hindrances and helps that chance puts in a person's way. In the singular it takes of and usually the, as in the furthering of peace.

Showing meanings only. Show all 2