positioning

1. 1
   noununcountable

   The act of placing something in a particular spot, or how it is arranged there.

   The positioning of the cameras ensured full coverage of the warehouse.

   Strategic positioning of the troops along the ridge decided the battle's outcome.

   Similarplacement, arrangement, deployment, siting, disposition

   Note

   A noun that usually takes of and then names the thing being placed: Railway Magazine in 1951 writes of the positioning of route diagrams and advertisements. It can also be counted. Keith Brindley's Starting Electronics (2011) compares breadboards by "the spacings and the positionings of the holes", treating each arrangement as a separate thing. That plural, positionings, sets it apart from the verb form, which never takes one.

2. 2
   verb

   Present participle of position.

   The crew is positioning the satellite for its upcoming launch.

   He kept positioning the chess pieces to test new openings.

   Note

   The -ing form does double duty. After a form of be it builds the progressive (the crew is positioning the satellite). Standing alone, it heads a noun phrase as a gerund (positioning the pieces took an hour). Either way it carries only the verb's meaning, to put into place, never the noun's senses of job, rank or stance. Once it takes an article or a plural, it has become the noun of placement.

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