launching

Plurallaunchings

1. 1
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The act by which something is set in motion or sent forth, or a single instance of it.

   Like the kickoff that starts a game: the single act that sets everything else in motion.

   The launching of the new satellite drew engineers from across the country.

   Coastal towns once held festive launchings whenever a vessel left the slipway.

   Note

   A noun that can be counted, with the plural launchings, and that takes its object through of: the launching of the Titanic. Raymond Friedman's A History of Jet Propulsion (2010) tallies 25 successful launchings of A5 rockets. That of is the quickest test against the verb form, which takes its object directly (launching the Titanic) and has no plural. The shorter noun launch covers the same ground.

2. 2
   verb

   Present participle of launch.

   The agency is launching a weather satellite into orbit this month.

   Crowds lined the riverbank, launching paper lanterns into the night sky.

   Note

   One spelling does two jobs here. After a form of be it builds the progressive (the agency is launching a satellite). At the head of a phrase it acts as a gerund (launching the rocket took months). Either way it keeps the verb's full reach: vessels set afloat, rockets sent upward, programs started, people sent on a mission. The old sense of piercing with a lance, however, is obsolete.

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