greening

Pluralgreenings (some meanings)

1. 1
   noununcountable

   The process by which something turns or comes to be green in color.

   The spring greening of the valley transformed the landscape within weeks.

   Botanists tracked the gradual greening of the seedlings as they matured.

   Note

   A seasonal word as much as a color word. Keats, in Sleep and Poetry (1816), writes of "the tender greening of April meadows," and spring growth remains its natural setting. It usually takes an of-phrase naming what turns green, such as the greening of the valley. Unlike the verb, it presents the change as a thing in itself.

2. 2
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of green.

   The council is greening the downtown core with hundreds of new trees.

   Greening the supply chain reduced the company's overall emissions.

   Note

   The -ing form carries every sense of the verb, literal and environmental alike. Used transitively it takes an object, as in greening a town with parks or greening a supply chain. Used intransitively it describes something turning green on its own, as fields do. When no object follows, it shades into the noun for turning green. An object after it marks it as the verb.

3. 3
   adjective

   Turning or coming to be green in color.

   The greening hillsides signaled the start of the rainy season.

   Photographers flocked to capture the greening landscape of early April.

   Similarverdant

   Note

   A participial adjective that sits before its noun, as in greening hillsides or a greening landscape. It describes a change still under way. Because it names a process rather than a degree, it does not grade: nothing is more greening or most greening. For the finished state, green itself is the word, and that one compares freely.

4. 4
   nouncountable

   A variety of apple whose skin remains green when fully ripe.

   The orchard's greenings were perfect for the fall pie-baking season.

   He bit into a greening, surprised by how tart the apple was.

Showing meanings only. Show all 5