kissing

Pluralkissings

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of kiss.

   The couple were kissing on the bridge as the fireworks lit the sky.

   He kept kissing her hand in that old-fashioned way.

   Note

   Two old formations share this one spelling. The participle descends from Old English cyssende, an -ende form matching German küssend, while the noun goes back to a separate *cyssing. After be it builds progressives, either transitive (kissing her hand) or reciprocal with a plural subject (the couple were kissing). As a gerund it fills a noun slot instead: Kissing her goodbye was hard.

2. 2
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The act of giving a kiss, or of making out with someone.

   The movie cut away just as the kissing began.

   Public kissing is frowned upon in some cultures.

   Note

   This noun has its own lineage: the separate Old English *cyssing traced under the participle. It is usually uncountable (the kissing began), but it can also be counted and pluralized as kissings. Catharine Maria Sedgwick's Tales and Sketches (1844) has a family parting "after many huggings and kissings". There the plural counts repeated rounds of farewell rather than the activity in general.

3. 3
   adjective

   Engaged in a kiss, or taking part in kissing.

   The kissing pair on the park bench drew a few smiles.

   A kissing couple stood silhouetted against the sunset.

4. 4
   adjective

   Just barely in contact; touching only at the very edge.

   The machinist set the tool to a kissing fit against the workpiece.

   Where the two breads baked side by side, a pale kissing crust formed.

   Note

   Here nothing has lips. The adjective takes the verb's lighter meaning, to touch slightly, and applies it to edges and surfaces: a kissing crust where loaves meet in the oven, a kissing fit between tool and workpiece. Because it is not comparable, it has no degrees. Two surfaces are kissing or they are not, and nothing is "more kissing" than something else.

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