honeymooning

Pluralhoneymoonings

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of honeymoon.

   Newlyweds honeymooning on the island can book a private sunset cruise.

   While they were honeymooning, their friends painted the new apartment.

   Note

   The verb takes no object, so the place and the length of the trip come after it: honeymooning in Rome, two weeks spent honeymooning. It follows be in progressive tenses (they are honeymooning in Maine), and set before a noun it becomes the adjective of a honeymooning couple.

2. 2
   adjective

   Away on a honeymoon, the trip a newly married couple takes after the wedding.

   The resort offers honeymooning couples a private beach and late checkout.

   Honeymooning travelers filled every room on the island that June.

3. 3
   nouncountable or uncountable

   A honeymoon, the trip or vacation a newly married couple takes just after their wedding.

   After a lavish wedding, their honeymooning was a modest week in a mountain cabin.

   Long honeymoonings abroad were once a luxury few couples could afford.

   Note

   Beside the everyday noun honeymoon, this one keeps the feel of something being done, and it can be counted or not: their honeymooning was brief, or many honeymoonings. Louis Filler's The Unknown Edwin Markham (1966) records the poet describing Lilimola, a secret realm of love and rest, where lovers go “for their honeymoonings”. For the trip itself, honeymoon is the plainer choice.

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