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pushing

PUUSH-ing/ˈpʊʃɪŋ/

Noun pluralpushings

4 meanings of pushing

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  1. 1
    verb
    Present participle and gerund of push.

    The toddler kept pushing the buttons on the remote.

    Pushing through the dense crowd, she finally reached the front.

    Note

    One -ing form does two jobs here. In "she was pushing the cart" it is a verb in a progressive tense, while in "pushing is not allowed" it acts as a noun naming the activity. It carries every meaning of push: shoving an object, urging a person, promoting a product, striving toward a goal, and even the informal, regional sense of coming close to something.

  2. 2
    nouncountable or uncountable
    The action of moving something away by applying pressure to it.

    The sudden pushing of the crowd sent several people stumbling.

    A steady pushing on the plunger forced the liquid out.

    Similarshoving, pressure, pressing, jostling

    Oppositepulling

    Note

    The noun takes a plural, pushings, and is often paired with its near twin, as in "the pushings and shovings of the crowd." The plural turns a single action into a run of separate jostles, which suits crowds. In the singular it usually names the activity as a whole, as in the pushing of the crowd. Pushing and shoving is the stock pairing in either number.

  3. 3
    adjective
    That presses or drives forward.

    The pushing pressure of the floodwater forced the gate open.

    Engineers studied the pushing thrust that propelled the rocket upward.

    Similardriving, propulsive

Less common meaning

  1. 4
    adjectivearchaic
    Aggressively assertive in manner; pushy.

    His pushing ambition offended the more reserved members of the club.

    The pushing young man elbowed his way into every conversation at the soirée.

    Note

    A word for the social climber, and now a rare one. Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray dismisses Mrs. Erlynne as "a pushing nobody," and the phrase is full of disdain for ambition. In modern writing it reads as period color, and pushy is the everyday word for the same thing. Keep it apart from the physical "driving forward" sense, which describes force rather than character.

pushing is a form of push

push, verb: To press against an object with force in order to move it away from the source of that force. Full entry

Forms
pushpushes he/she/itpushing -ing formpushed past tense, past participle
Spelling
push → pushing: add -ing

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