ministering

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of minister.

   Relief workers were ministering to survivors trapped by the floodwaters.

   He found deep meaning in ministering to the dying.

   Note

   Three verbs share this form, and the construction tells them apart. Ministering to someone means tending their needs. Ministering with no object, in a church or parish, means serving as clergy. The archaic transitive use takes a direct object, as in ministering comfort, and means supplying it. The same spelling also serves as the describing adjective and the noun for acts of care.

2. 2
   adjective

   Describing a person or thing that attends to others' needs or provides care and service.

   Ministering angels watched over the dying man through the night.

   Her ministering presence comforted everyone in the ward.

   Similarcaring, nurturing, attentive, solicitous

   Oppositeneglectful, uncaring

3. 3
   noununcountable

   The act of attending to others' needs; the giving of care, aid, or service.

   The ministering of comfort to grieving families is central to the chaplain's role.

   Years of ministering to the destitute defined her life's work.

   Similarcare, service, ministration, aid

   Oppositeneglect

   Note

   The noun can be counted as well as used abstractly. Ministerings, in the plural, are the separate small acts of care, as in Andrew Lang's A Monk of Fife (1896), where a daughter's "gentle ministerings" are a grace bestowed. Ministration is its near-synonym. In the singular, the word often takes of for what is given (the ministering of comfort) or to for who receives it.

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