gifting

Pluralgiftings (some meanings)

1. 1
   noununcountable

   The giving or exchanging of gifts, or an occasion on which this happens.

   Corporate gifting has become a standard part of client relationships.

   The season of gifting brings a surge in retail sales each December.

   Similargiving

   Note

   Ethnography gives the noun its fullest life as a countable word for ceremonial exchange. J. Michael Fullingim's Of Pigs, Men and Life (1985) describes the yangi toko giftings that follow a Wiru marriage, and Richard Daly (2007) writes of the sagali giftings of Trobriand mourning. Peter Howland's Wine and The Gift (2022) uses it as a mass noun for gift exchange as a system that builds social bonds.

2. 2
   verb

   Present participle of gift.

   He is gifting a portion of his estate to charity.

   The company is gifting shares to its long-term employees.

   Note

   The participle can carry either meaning of the transitive verb: handing something over as a present, or giving something away too easily. As a gerund it still takes a direct object (gifting shares to employees, gifting a portion of an estate). That object is the test that separates it from the noun for exchanging presents, which takes no object and can be pluralized as giftings.

3. 3
   nouncountable

   A talent, ability, or blessing understood as given by God.

   The congregation recognized his gifting in prophecy and prayer.

   She discerned a gifting for leadership early in her ministry.

   Similartalent, calling

   Note

   Christian writing on ministry keeps this sense in steady use. Pastors speak of the giftings of a congregation, and writers pair the word with prophetic or supernatural. It names the endowment itself rather than any act of giving, and it is freely countable and plural. Outside a devotional setting, gift or talent says the same thing without the religious coloring.

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