pounding

Pluralpoundings

1. 1
   nouncountable or uncountable

   An act of striking or beating something or someone forcefully and repeatedly.

   The fortress walls could not withstand the relentless pounding from the cannons.

   Her car's suspension took a pounding on the rough mountain road.

   Similarbattering, beating, hammering, bombardment, thumping

   Note

   Most often it is something taken rather than given: walls, a car's suspension or a person takes a pounding. Unlike the bare gerund, it can be counted, so poundings can pile up. Robin Pogrebin's 2008 New York Times profile of a museum director quotes the line "I took a few poundings in the past," carrying the word from blows to a working life.

2. 2
   adjective

   Marked by heavy or loud throbbing beats.

   A pounding rain hammered the rooftops through the night.

   His pounding pulse betrayed how nervous he really was.

   Similarthrobbing, thumping, hammering

   Oppositegentle, soft, faint

3. 3
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of pound.

   The waves were pounding against the rocks all night.

   Pounding the spices into a paste takes patience.

   Note

   One spelling serves several verbs. The -ing form carries every sense of pound: striking hard (pounding on the door), crushing to powder (pounding spices), impounding, and slang uses such as downing a drink fast or, in regional British slang, wagering a pound on something. After be it builds the progressive. In noun positions it is the gerund, which becomes the countable noun once it takes a plural, poundings.

4. 4
   nouncountable

   An old-fashioned welcome event at which guests bring gifts of storable food, such as flour, sugar, or coffee, to help a newcomer (often a new pastor) stock the pantry.

   When the young minister arrived, the congregation threw a pounding to fill his shelves with flour and sugar.

   Her grandmother still remembered the pounding the village held for every new family.

   Note

   The name comes from the gifts, not from any beating: each guest arrived with a pound of something, such as coffee, flour or sugar. It belongs beside the shower, another party defined by what the guests carry in, and like that word it takes throw or hold. It shares nothing with the striking noun except its spelling.

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