kittening

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of kitten.

   The barn cat began kittening just before dawn.

   Kittening left the small tabby exhausted but content.

   Note

   Behind this form stands a verb that works two ways. Intransitively, a cat is simply kittening; transitively, she is kittening a litter, with the young as the object. Only the birth sense of kitten yields this form. The endearment, the girlfriend and the moth are nouns alone, so kittening never means doting on a sweetheart.

   The queen was kittening a litter of five in the linen cupboard.

   Our oldest cat is kittening again, and nobody saw it coming.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The process by which a female cat gives birth to her kittens.

   The kittening took most of the night, but the queen managed without any help.

   Breeders prepare a clean, quiet nest box well ahead of the kittening.

   Note

   Kitten plus -ing turns the birth itself into a noun. It is usually uncountable, though separate births can be counted as kittenings. It also works before another noun: in Diane Duane's The Book of Night With Moon (1997), a cat is mocked because her "kittening part" cannot grow back. With an article or adjective (the kittening, a long kittening) it is this noun; with an object it is the verb's -ing form.

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