grading

Pluralgradings (some meanings)

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle of grade.

   Workers are grading the new road before the crew lays asphalt.

   The committee is grading each application against a strict rubric.

   Note

   One spelling, two jobs: the progressive participle (she is grading essays) and the gerund that names the activity (grading takes all weekend). It carries every trade of the verb: scoring tests in North American classrooms, leveling ground with a grader, trimming a seam allowance, scaling a garment pattern across sizes, and labeling data by hand. The earthmoving gerund has also settled into the landscaping noun.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The reshaping of land contours to direct rainwater drainage, prepare ground for lawns and gardens, lay roadbeds, and similar work.

   Proper grading directs runoff toward the storm drain rather than the neighbor's yard.

   The site's grading had to be completed before any foundations could be poured.

   Similarleveling, contouring

   Note

   Builders and landscapers use the word for both the work and its result. A lot's grading is the slope the ground was left with, so builders speak of grading as proper or poor, finished or unfinished. It comes before foundations, lawns and roadbeds because everything after it depends on where the water runs.

3. 3
   nouncountable

   A rank or grade: a position assigned within an ordered scale of quality or status.

   Inspectors assigned the beef the highest grading available.

   His new grading entitled him to a higher salary band.

   Similarrating, rank, classification

   Note

   Unlike the activity senses, this one is countable and freely takes a plural. Herman Wouk's The Caine Mutiny (1951) dismisses military rank as "such gradings", and Peter Jarvis and Colin Griffin (2003) write of "examination gradings". The word names the label a person, product or paper ends up with, not the process of assigning it.

4. 4
   nouncountable

   A gradation; a gradual progression from one degree, shade, or stage to another by small steps.

   The map uses a grading of greens to show changes in elevation.

   A subtle grading of tones gives the photograph its sense of depth.

   Similargradation, progression, gradient

   Note

   Mathematics uses this sense as a technical term, a synonym of gradation: something arranged into ordered levels. Outside that field, readers easily hear the word as a rank or grade or as scoring. In general prose, gradation is the clearer choice for a smooth run of shades or stages.

5. 5
   nounPhilippinesabbreviationellipsis

   Short form of grading period. Used in the Philippines.

   The teacher posts averages at the close of every grading.

   He failed two classes in the first grading but recovered later.

   Note

   Philippine English clips grading period to its first word, and the school year then counts in ordinals: the first grading, the second grading. The clipped noun also works attributively, as in a first grading exam. Outside the Philippines the bare form is likely to be heard as a rank or grade, so writing for an international audience is safer with the full grading period.

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