mooing

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of moo.

   The herd kept mooing as the farmer approached with feed.

   Mooing softly, the cow nudged her newborn calf.

   Note

   One -ing form, two jobs. As a participle it builds the progressive (the cows were mooing) and opening phrases (mooing softly, the cow…). As a gerund it names the act while keeping its verb habits. Because moo is intransitive, neither use takes an object. The line between the gerund and the noun for the sound falls where adverbs give way to adjectives.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The act of producing a cow's call, or the low, drawn-out sound itself.

   The constant mooing of the herd carried across the valley.

   She recognized each cow by the pitch of its mooing.

   Similarlowing

   Note

   Here the word has become a full noun. It takes adjectives and a plural, so each call can be counted as one of many. Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts writes of a cow's "piteous mooings" in Hoof and claw (1920). The plural turns the sound into a series of separate cries, and it is the clearest sign that the word is acting as a noun rather than a gerund.

3. 3
   adjectivehumorous

   Extremely rare; used humorously of meat cooked so briefly it might as well still be alive.

   He sent the steak back for being too well done; he prefers it practically mooing.

   The diner ordered his roast beef mooing and got it bloody and barely seared.

   Similarraw, bloody

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