peaking

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of peak.

   Oil prices were peaking just as the recession began.

   Athletes risk peaking too soon and arriving tired for the main event.

   Note

   Every sense of the verb travels in this form, not only the high point. A sailor peaking a gaff raises it toward the vertical. An engineer's signal peaking overloads the equipment and clips. Grammatically, the -ing form builds progressive tenses (prices were peaking) or heads a gerund clause (peaking too soon). The verb's meaning "to become sick or wan" lives on separately in the pale, pining adjective.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The act or process of reaching a highest point before declining.

   The peaking of demand caught several suppliers off guard last quarter.

   Analysts traced the peaking of housing prices to a brief surge in speculation.

   Similarcresting

   Note

   Here the gerund settles into a true noun. It takes an article and an of-phrase (the peaking of demand), and it can even be plural, as in peakings. Compare demand peaking, which is still a verb with its own subject, with the peaking of demand, where the event itself is the thing named.

3. 3
   adjective

   Pale and sickly in appearance, or wasting away from grief or longing.

   Similarsickly, pale

   Note

   Nothing to do with summits: this adjective comes from the verb's meaning "to become sick or wan," and it describes someone drooping rather than rising. It sits beside peaky and sickly, while pining adds longing to the paleness. Unlike the participle, it is gradable (more peaking, most peaking), so a child can look more peaking today than yesterday.

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