managing

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of manage.

   He spent years managing a small bookstore before retiring.

   Managing the family budget fell to her after the divorce.

   Note

   The -ing form does two jobs. As a participle it follows be in progressive tenses (she is managing well). As a gerund it acts as a noun but keeps its verbal grammar, taking a direct object: managing a bookstore. Compare the noun use, which swaps the object for an of-phrase. Managing to means succeeding despite difficulty, and it is sometimes ironic: he kept managing to lose his keys.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The act or process of running and controlling a business, organization, or set of tasks; management.

   The managing of such a large household required real skill.

   Her steady managing kept the small firm profitable for decades.

   Similarmanagement, running, administration, handling

   Note

   A true noun, so unlike the gerund it can go plural. Francis Bacon, in The Twoo Bookes of 1605, writes of learning's "diverse administrations and managings," pairing it with its near-synonym. In everyday prose management is the usual word. Managing as a noun reads most naturally with an article and an of-phrase, as in the managing of a household. Without them, it is easily heard as the verbal gerund.

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