patrolling

1. 1
   noununcountable

   The act of moving through an area to guard it or watch for trouble.

   Increased patrolling along the border deterred smugglers.

   The captain ordered more patrolling after the recent string of thefts.

   Similarpolicing, surveillance, guarding

   Note

   Unlike the gerund, the noun can be counted. William Buchan's The Log of H. M. S. "Bristol" (1916) speaks of "our patrollings" up and down the enemy coast, a plural that treats each sweep as a separate outing. More often it stays uncountable and takes adjectives rather than objects: increased patrolling, regular patrolling, nighttime patrolling along the coast.

2. 2
   verb

   Present participle of patrol.

   Soldiers were patrolling the perimeter when the alarm sounded.

   Drones are now patrolling vast stretches of farmland for pests.

   Note

   A participle that follows its verb both ways: transitive when sentries are patrolling the perimeter, intransitive when officers are simply out patrolling. After be it builds the progressive. Elsewhere it can act as a gerund and still take a direct object, as in patrolling the border is dull work. That object is the test that separates it from the plain noun, which takes adjectives and plurals instead.

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