neighing

Pluralneighings

1. 1
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The drawn-out vocal sound produced by a horse.

   A nervous neighing rose from the paddock as the storm rolled in.

   The steady neighing of the team carried across the misty field.

   Similarwhinnying, nickering

   Note

   A noun that can be counted or left as a mass. Used uncountably, it names the noise in general, as in the neighing carried across the field. Used countably, it takes an article or a plural. Harriet W. Daly writes of "a neighing of horses" in 1887, and in Shelley's The Revolt of Islam (1817) a horse will "mock the fierce peal with neighings." The shorter noun neigh is a synonym.

2. 2
   verb

   Present participle of neigh.

   The mare was neighing anxiously as the trailer pulled away.

   Out in the field, several horses were neighing at the approaching riders.

   Note

   The -ing form does two jobs. After be it builds the progressive (the mare was neighing), and on its own it works as a gerund naming the act (her neighing woke the yard). It carries every sense of the verb, so a person laughing in a horselike way can be neighing too. The old meaning "to scoff or sneer" is obsolete and reads as a period touch today.

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