pacing

1. 1
   noununcountable

   The act of moving in measured steps, or the arrangement and timing of those steps.

   The coach studied her pacing to see where she lost speed on the final lap.

   His restless pacing across the room kept everyone on edge.

   Note

   This noun can be counted as well as name an activity, so it takes a plural. Oliver Sacks's Awakenings (1973) lists pacings beside steps, ticks, clocks and routines as regular patterns laid out in space and time. In everyday use it names either a restless episode (his pacing across the room) or the way speed is spread across a distance, as when a coach reads a runner's pacing lap by lap.

2. 2
   verb

   Present participle of pace.

   He was pacing the hallway, rehearsing his speech under his breath.

   Pacing nervously, she checked the clock every few minutes.

   Note

   One spelling does two grammatical jobs here: participle (she was pacing) and gerund (pacing calms him). It takes an object when it means covering a space (pacing the hallway), measuring a distance by walking it, or setting the speed for another runner. Without an object it describes the restless back-and-forth walk. Only the noun for steps and their timing forms a plural, pacings.

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