pimping

PIM-ping/ˈpɪmpɪŋ/

6 meanings of pimping

Practice

1
verb
Present participle and gerund of pimp.
The attending spent morning rounds pimping the interns on drug interactions.
He had been arrested for pimping in three different states.
Note
With so many meanings, the object tells them apart. Pimping a car means customizing it to excess and pimping a product means talking it up, both slang; on hospital rounds, a senior doctor pimping a student fires ever harder questions until one goes unanswered; and pimping a person to customers is the crime.
2
noununcountable
The practice of managing prostitutes and hiring out their services to customers.
Investigators said street pimping had largely moved online.
A former sex worker spoke to the students about the reality of pimping.
Similarprocuring
Note
The trade itself is uncountable, but each offense can be counted when a criminal record is tallied: John E. Douglas and Mark Olshaker's Mindhunter describes a young adult life marked by robberies, forgeries, pimpings and assaults. In that plural the word names separate charges rather than a way of life.
3
noununcountable
The customizing of a vehicle, usually a car, with the focus on its looks and its audio and video equipment rather than its performance.
The TV show turned the pimping of beat-up cars into prime-time entertainment.
Most of his budget for the pimping went on chrome rims and a dashboard screen.
4
adjectiveslang
Made up of pimps, or having the qualities of a pimp.
He strolled into the club in a pimping fur coat, with gold rings on every finger.
Folks on the block said Cedric had a real pimping way of talking himself out of trouble.
Note
The word comes from African-American Vernacular English and lives in casual talk, before a noun (a pimping coat) or after a verb (looking pimping), with more and most for comparison. Because it is built on pimp, it can read as crude outside that register, and it rarely suits neutral writing.

Less common meanings

5
adjectivedated
Small in size or petty in importance.
The clerk earned a pimping wage that barely covered his rent.
She had no patience for pimping squabbles over who sat where at dinner.
Similarpaltry, petty, measly, trifling, piddling
Note
Older prose uses it to belittle: a pimping wage or a pimping quarrel is beneath serious notice. Petty and paltry do that work today, and a modern reader is likely to hear the slang adjective in it, which makes the old word risky outside period writing or quotation.
6
adjectiveobsoleteUS
Puny or sickly.
The runt of the litter stayed pimping all winter and never caught up with the others.
Her grandmother fretted over the pimping baby and fed it warm milk every hour.
Note
Regional American speech once used it for a weak or sickly creature, and it has since dropped out of use. It sits close to the "petty" meaning, but where that one scorns a thing for being small, this one pities a living thing for being frail.

pimping is a form of pimp

pimp, verb: To customize something to excess, especially a car or other vehicle. Full entry

Forms: pimppimps he/she/itpimping -ing formpimped past tense, past participle
Spelling: pimp → pimping: add -ing

Practice

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Origin

Analysed as pimp + -ing.