nooning

Pluralnoonings

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of noon.

   The wagon train was nooning on the open prairie when scouts spotted dust on the horizon.

   After nooning in a meadow, the pilgrims resumed their journey toward the shrine.

   Note

   The verb behind it is intransitive: to rest or sleep around midday. So it never takes an object. A wagon train is nooning on the prairie, not nooning anything. It is spelled the same as the noun for a midday rest, and grammar tells them apart. The verb follows be or a preposition (after nooning in a meadow), while the noun takes a determiner (their nooning).

2. 2
   nounarchaic

   A midday meal eaten partway through the working day; lunch.

   The harvesters laid down their scythes and gathered under the hedge for their nooning.

   In proper California fashion we made our nooning by the roadside, pulling up under the shade of a hospitable sycamore and turning Sorreltop out to graze.

   1909, Various, The California Birthday Book

   Note

   Here the midday halt is about food, and the line between this and the midday rest is often blurred. Mark Twain's A Tramp Abroad (1878) has travelers "taking their nooning at the inn," which could mean either. It pairs with have, take and make, and it often belongs to a meal eaten outdoors, by the roadside or under trees. It carries the same old-fashioned, regional coloring as the rest sense.

3. 3
   nounarchaic

   A nap or period of rest taken in the middle of the day.

   The shepherd enjoyed a brief nooning while his flock grazed nearby.

   It was the nooning hour, and the men at their limited leisure lay in the sun on the piles of lumber, like lizards.

   1912, Charles Egbert Craddock, The Ordeal

   Note

   Built simply from noon plus -ing, it names the pause that working days once made room for, and it now sounds archaic or dialectal. It suits historical fiction or rural speech better than modern prose. It usually takes a possessive (enjoying their nooning) or the verb make (made our nooning), and it can stand before a noun, as in Charles Egbert Craddock's The Ordeal (1912): "It was the nooning hour."

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