rabbiting

1. 1
   noununcountable

   An outing or expedition undertaken to hunt and catch rabbits, usually in fields or open country.

   A day's rabbiting with the dogs left them tired but pleased.

   He invited his nephew along for some rabbiting on the estate.

   Note

   Here the hunt is counted as an event rather than treated as an activity. Alexander Hay Japp's Hours in My Garden (1893) describes periodic rabbitings, in the plural, that left the life of a wood "disturbed, paralysed" and sent birds flying. The plural rabbitings marks separate hunts. Uncountable phrasings such as "some rabbiting" or "a day's rabbiting" treat it as a pastime, which brings it close to the verb's gerund.

2. 2
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of rabbit.

   The farmers were rabbiting on the far slopes before dawn.

   Rabbiting through dense brush demands patience and a steady dog.

   Note

   The -ing form carries every verb sense of rabbit, so context decides which one is meant. Usually it is the hunting verb, intransitive like its base: people go rabbiting, but they do not rabbit something. In US use the same form can mean running away. In British use it means chattering tiresomely, so "he kept rabbiting" may be about talk rather than field sport. When it names one outing, it becomes the countable noun.

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