lecturing

1. 1
   noununcountable

   The act of delivering a lecture, or of giving someone a long, critical talking-to.

   After an hour of his lecturing, the students stopped taking notes.

   She resented the constant lecturing from her parents about her career choices.

   Similarpreaching, moralizing, sermonizing, nagging

   Note

   Unlike many nouns of activity, this one takes a plural, and the plural readily carries the harangue rather than the classroom. Bram Stoker's The Man (1905) pairs "the patronage and the lecturings" as things a character had to put up with. Counted this way, lecturings are separate bouts of being told off. Uncountable lecturing can still mean simply giving lectures.

2. 2
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of lecture.

   The professor is lecturing on medieval trade routes this semester.

   They spent the whole evening lecturing the volunteers on proper procedure.

   Note

   One spelling does two grammatical jobs. It is the participle after a form of be (she is lecturing) and the gerund that names the activity (lecturing tires her). The construction also shapes the meaning. With on plus a topic and no listener named, it is plain teaching. With a person as object, it can tip into preaching or scolding. The countable use belongs to the noun for a harangue.

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