journeying

1. 1
   noununcountable

   The act or process of traveling, especially over long distances or from place to place.

   Months of journeying across the steppe finally brought the caravan to the coast.

   Her journeying took her through countries she had only ever read about.

   Similartravel, wandering, roaming, trekking

   Note

   The plural, journeyings, is where this noun shows its independence from the verb form. S. H. Hammond's Wild Northern Scenes (1857) follows the sun "in his journeyings through the sky." The plural counts separate stretches of travel, a run of trips rather than one. The noun is old in its own right: it comes from Middle English journeyinge, journey plus -ing.

2. 2
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of journey.

   The pilgrims were journeying toward the holy city when winter set in.

   Journeying by night, the smugglers slipped past the border patrols.

   Note

   The -ing form of the verb does two jobs. After a form of be it builds the progressive (they were journeying south). On its own it can open a clause as a participle (journeying by night) or act as a gerund, a verb doing a noun's work. Because the verb simply means to travel, a direction or manner usually follows it. Once it takes a plural, it has become the noun for travel.

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