intaking

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle of intake.

   The plant is intaking carbon dioxide through tiny pores in its leaves.

   During takeoff the engines are intaking enormous volumes of air every second.

   Note

   A transitive form that always wants an object: something is intaking air, water or nutrients. As a progressive it follows be (the plant is intaking carbon dioxide). As a gerund it can head a phrase and still take its object directly (intaking protein daily). Once it takes an article, an of-phrase or the plural intakings, it has become the noun for taking in.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The act of taking something in, whether air, food, water, or other material drawn inward.

   The careful intaking of nutrients is vital during recovery from illness.

   Engineers monitored the intaking of coolant into the cooling system.

   Similaruptake, ingestion, absorption

   Note

   John Dewey's Art as Experience (1934) shows the noun at its most expressive: in the plural, set against its opposite. Experience, like breathing, is "a rhythm of intakings and outgivings." The plural treats each taking-in as a separate event, which makes the word well suited to describing alternation and rhythm, especially when it is paired with a word for giving out.

3. 3
   noununcountable

   The money received over a period; income earned by a person or business.

   The charity reported a sharp drop in intaking after the holidays.

   Most of the farm's intaking came from the fall harvest.

   Similarincome, revenue, earnings, takings, receipts

   Oppositeexpenditure

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