limiting

Plurallimitings

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of limit.

   The company is limiting access to the report until the review finishes.

   Limiting the number of guests kept the small party manageable.

   Note

   Two jobs share this spelling. After is or are it is the participle in a progressive (is limiting access). At the head of a phrase it is the gerund, which still behaves like a verb and takes a direct object: limiting the number of guests. That object is the quick test against the countable noun, which takes of instead. Limit also once had a use, now obsolete, meaning to beg or work within a set district.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   A restriction or boundary placed on something; a limitation.

   The treaty placed a clear limiting on the number of warheads each side could keep.

   Budget cuts imposed a harsh limiting on what the small department could accomplish.

   Similarrestriction, cap, constraint, curb

   Note

   The verb's -ing form hardened into a countable noun, which is why it can take a plural. George Frederick Simmons wrote in 1846 of "the errors and limitings of the understanding," and the pairing shows its reach: it can name the bounds a mind or faculty works within, set beside its mistakes, as well as a restriction someone imposes from outside.

Showing meanings only. Show all 2