incarcerating
- 1Present participle and gerund of incarcerate.
The state spends billions each year incarcerating nonviolent offenders.
Critics argue that incarcerating addicts does little to reduce drug use.
Note
The -ing form does double duty. After be it is a progressive verb (the state is incarcerating more people), and at the head of a phrase it is a gerund that works like a noun (incarcerating addicts costs billions). Either way it stays transitive and needs a direct object. The usual object is a person behind bars, but the wider sense of shutting in or hemming in carries over too, so it can describe anything enclosed, not only prisoners.
incarcerating is a form of incarcerate
incarcerate, verb: To lock someone away; to imprison them, especially for breaking the law. Full entry
- Forms
- incarcerateincarcerates he/she/itincarcerating -ing formincarcerated past tense, past participle
- Spelling
- incarcerate → incarcerating: drop the e, add -ing
Use it in a sentence
Write your own sentence with incarcerating, and AI will tell you whether it fits and which meaning you used.