punching

Pluralpunchings

1. 1
   nouncountable

   An occasion on which a person is struck with the fist.

   The punching during the late-night brawl sent two men to the emergency room.

   Security cameras recorded the punching that happened outside the club.

   Similarbeating

   Note

   The countable noun of crime reporting, which turns a single assault into an event that can be counted. Punchings stand in a row with stabbings, glassings and beatings in Evonne Barry's 2009 Herald Sun piece on alcohol and violence. The -ing form names the attack as an incident rather than an action, so it sits naturally beside words like rate, report and tally.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The process of piercing holes through something, such as a leather belt or a train ticket.

   Automated punching replaced the hand tools at the leather factory.

   The clerk handled the ticket punching for hundreds of passengers each day.

   Similarperforation, piercing, clipping

3. 3
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of punch.

   The boxer is punching with surprising speed tonight.

   Children were punching each other playfully in the yard.

   Note

   Every verb sense of punch passes through this form, and each one takes an object. You can be punching a ticket, punching in a code, punching a button, tapping a ball with less than full force, or even punching cattle in the sense of herding them. The fist is only one of these uses. Two have hardened into nouns of their own, the assault and the hole-making process.

   She was punching her PIN into the keypad when the screen froze.

   The conductor worked down the aisle, punching tickets as he went.

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