motoring

1. 1
   noununcountable

   The activity of operating a motor vehicle, especially driving a car.

   Sunday motoring was once a popular family pastime.

   Years of motoring had given him a sharp instinct for tricky roads.

   Similardriving

   Note

   Usually a mass noun for the activity, as in Sunday motoring, but it can be counted when it means separate outings. George Bernard Shaw, writing to Beatrice around 1910, describes a coast "familiar to me through my Torquay motorings": his individual drives there. The plural motorings is therefore correct, though the uncountable use is the everyday one.

2. 2
   verb

   Present participle of motor.

   She was motoring through the village at a gentle pace.

   The family went motoring along the new coastal road.

   Note

   The -ing form carries every sense of the verb, not only the road one. Beside the dated sense of driving, aviation crews speak of motoring a jet engine: turning it on its starter with no fuel. Informally it means moving at a brisk pace, as in Kelly Keagy's lyric for Night Ranger's "Sister Christian" (1983), where it is said to the song's title character. In slang, motoring can simply mean leaving.

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