netting

Pluralnettings

1. 1
   nouncountable or uncountable

   A mesh-like material of woven or knotted threads with open spaces, working like or resembling a net.

   Much like a tennis net stretched flat to form a barrier.

   Fine netting draped over the crib kept the mosquitoes off the sleeping baby.

   The construction site was wrapped in bright orange netting to warn passersby.

   Similarmesh, gauze

   Note

   The material takes no plural (a roll of netting), but particular nets can be counted. In Dryden's Amboyna (1673), sailors readying for a sea fight are told to hoist their colors and "your Nettings prepare." The word is simply net plus -ing. By 1965 the U.S. Army Air Defense Digest used "radar netting" for gathering several radars' track data at one center.

2. 2
   verb

   Present participle of net.

   The trawler was netting herring far out in the North Sea.

   Volunteers are netting and tagging migratory birds for the study.

   Note

   The -ing form carries every use of the verb, from the trawler's catch to the striker's. A team netting twice has scored twice, and a player netting a shot has hit it into the net. The final t doubles before -ing. As a gerund it names an activity (the netting of songbirds). It takes an object or an of-phrase, which sets it apart from the mesh material, a length of netting.

3. 3
   nounobsoleteUKuncountable

   Urine; the fluid waste produced by the kidneys and passed from the body.

   Note

   A separate word that only looks like the mesh noun: Middle English netting "urine," perhaps borrowed from Middle Low German nattinge "wetness" or formed from netten "to wet, urinate." It belonged to British regional speech and is now obsolete. The Court Leet Records of 1557 list "Nettinge or Fylthe" among noisome things. Expect it in old documents, never in modern speech, where listeners would hear only the net.

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