inserting

Pluralinsertings

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of insert.

   The editor is inserting a new paragraph into the draft.

   Inserting the card slowly, he waited for the gate to open.

   Note

   The -ing form of a transitive verb, so it nearly always carries an object: inserting a card, inserting a paragraph into a draft. As a gerund it names the action itself and takes no plural. Once the word can be counted (two insertings, an inserting of lace), it has become the noun for a set-in piece. If you can add a or -s, you are no longer looking at the verb.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   A piece of material set into something else, such as a strip of lace added into a garment.

   A hand-stitched inserting ran the length of the gown's bodice.

   The tailor matched the insertings on each cuff to the collar trim.

   Similarinset, panel

   Note

   A lace-trade word, at home in the language of tariffs as well as tailoring. The Congressional Serial Set of 1913 rules on flax handkerchiefs trimmed with "edgings and insertings of cotton lace," setting their duty at 70 per cent. That pairing is the useful contrast: an edging runs along a border, while an inserting is set into the body of the fabric. Unlike the verb form, it is countable and takes a plural.

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