necking

Pluralneckings (some meanings)

1. 1
   nounslanguncountable

   Prolonged, affectionate kissing and caressing, especially around the neck.

   An hour of necking on the couch left them both flushed and giddy.

   Her parents disapproved of the necking they spotted through the car window.

   Similarpetting, canoodling

   Note

   The courtship sense names an activity rather than a single kiss, so it sits naturally in phrases like an hour of necking on the couch. The tone is slangy and a little teasing. In neutral prose, kissing or making out says the same thing without the wink. For how the verb behind it is built, see the participle.

2. 2
   verb

   Present participle of neck.

   The teenagers were necking behind the gym after class.

   She caught her roommate necking with a stranger on the porch.

   Note

   One spelling carries several unrelated verbs, and the grammar around it tells them apart. Used intransitively, often with "with" (necking with a stranger), it is the kissing verb, marked US and informal. With a direct object it turns to slang: necking a beer means swallowing it fast, and necking someone can mean hanging or killing them. Something that is necking with no partner and no object is narrowing in diameter.

3. 3
   noununcountable

   Combat between male giraffes in which they use their necks as weapons to establish social dominance.

   Researchers filmed an intense session of necking between two dominant bulls.

   Necking allows male giraffes to establish dominance through repeated blows.

   Note

   Not always a fight in earnest: Barbara Keevil Parker's Giraffes (2005) describes necking as the way young males test which of them has the stronger neck. The word works as a mass noun for the behavior (necking is common among bulls) and as a count noun for a single bout (two bulls locked in a necking). In general prose, make the giraffes explicit so it is not mistaken for the courtship meaning.

4. 4
   nounslangcountable or uncountable

   Quickly drinking down a beer in one continuous go.

   The contest rewarded the fastest necking of a pint.

   His reckless necking of cheap beer always ended badly.

   Similarchugging, downing

   Oppositesipping

   Note

   Drinking slang built on the verb neck, to swallow fast, and it can name a habit as well as a single act. Someone who gives up necking and cigarettes for Lent is giving up a way of drinking, not one gulp. Because the kissing sense is just as slangy, let the setting make plain that a drink is involved.

5. 5
   nouncountable

   A molding encircling the top of a column shaft, marking where it meets the capital.

   The architect specified a carved necking beneath each capital.

   Restorers cleaned the weathered necking on every column in the colonnade.

   Note

   Architects also call it a neckmould, and the name follows the body: the shaft is treated as a neck beneath the capital's head. As a count noun it is one band on one column (each necking in the row). As an uncountable noun it means the molded work itself, as in carved necking along a colonnade. Keep it distinct from the capital, which sits above it.

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