marooning

Pluralmaroonings

1. 1
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The act of abandoning a person in a remote, deserted place, leaving them stranded with no easy means of escape.

   The captain ordered the marooning of the mutineer on a barren reef.

   Maroonings of disobedient crew members were a recognized punishment aboard pirate ships.

   Similarabandonment, stranding

   Note

   Here the -ing word has become a full countable noun. It takes the and of (the marooning of the mutineer) and forms a plural, maroonings. That separates it from the gerund, which keeps a direct object instead: compare marooning a mutineer with the marooning of a mutineer. Adjectives attach to the noun (a cruel marooning), while adverbs go with the gerund (cruelly marooning him).

2. 2
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of maroon.

   The crew spent the dawn marooning two mutineers on a sandbar.

   Marooning a defiant officer was their favored way of settling disputes.

   Note

   The -ing form does two jobs. After be it builds the progressive (they were marooning the crew), and on its own it works as a verbal noun that still takes a direct object, as in marooning a defiant officer. Only the verb maroon, meaning to abandon in a remote place, stands behind it. The color and the Maroon communities share the spelling but have no verb, so marooning never means turning something dark red.

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