partying

Pluralpartyings

1. 1
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The activity of regularly going to social gatherings held for fun and entertainment.

   Months of constant partying began to take a toll on his health.

   After the wedding, the partying continued well into the early hours.

   Similarrevelry, celebration, carousing, merrymaking

   Note

   Usually a mass noun, as in too much partying or a weekend of partying, yet it also takes a plural. Francis Grose, in Mirror's Image: Advice to the Officers of the British Army (1782), writes of "one continuous round of convivial partyings." The plural counts separate bouts of revelry, while the singular names the habit as a whole, which is how it is mostly used today.

2. 2
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of party.

   The graduates kept partying until the sun came up over the lake.

   After exams, the students went partying downtown for three nights straight.

   Note

   The -ing form carries every verb sense of party, and all of them are intransitive: people go partying or party with friends, but they never party something. Context matters, because in slang the same form can be a euphemism for taking recreational drugs. In Internet usage, partying with someone means forming a group with them. In 'a hard night's partying' it already works as a noun, shading into the noun for the social habit.

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