qualifying

Pluralqualifyings

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of qualify.

   Several teams are qualifying through this weekend's matches.

   Qualifying for the scholarship took her months of preparation.

   Note

   One spelling carries two quite different jobs of qualify. Qualifying for something means meeting its conditions or becoming eligible, and it takes for: qualifying for a scholarship, qualifying for the next round. Qualifying a statement means limiting it, and it takes a direct object instead: qualifying a claim, qualifying a promise. The preposition is the quickest way to tell them apart, and the noun for an added condition grows from the second job.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   An examination that must be taken and passed in order to become eligible for something.

   Candidates who fail the qualifying may retake it the following year.

   The medical school sets a tough qualifying for all applicants.

   Similarexam, examination, test, qualifier

   Note

   Graduate study is its natural setting, and it can stand in the plural with the. Robert Nisbet's Teachers and Scholars (2013) writes of faculty who dread having to fail a student in the qualifyings. One fails or passes in them, as with any exam. Because it shares that plural with the noun for an added condition, the surroundings tell them apart: an examiner points here, a contract or a promise points there.

3. 3
   nouncountable

   A qualification or added condition that limits or modifies a statement or agreement.

   Her support came with a qualifying about the budget.

   The contract included a qualifying that allowed either side to cancel.

   Similarqualification, condition, proviso, reservation, caveat

   Note

   Unlike the verb form, it counts and takes a plural. Samuel Richardson's Clarissa (1748) shows it at its most vivid: "No buts, girl! No qualifyings, I will be obeyed." Set beside buts, a qualifying is the hedge a reluctant listener slips into agreement, the condition that turns a plain yes into "yes, if." Qualification is the word that glosses it and the one most readers will recognize first.

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