reeding
- 1Ornamental molding made of narrow, parallel raised strips that look like a row of reeds.
The mahogany bedposts are carved with fine reeding from top to bottom.
A band of reeding softens the edge of the marble mantelpiece.
- 2The milling, a series of fine ridges, along the edge of a coin.
Counterfeit coins often give themselves away with shallow or uneven reeding.
The dime's reeding had worn almost smooth after decades in circulation.
Similarmilling
- 3Present participle and gerund of reed.
The thatchers spent a week reeding the barn roof before the autumn rains.
The mint is reeding the new silver coins on a press built for the job.
Note
Two trades share the verb, and the participle serves both: thatchers are reeding a roof when they cover it with thatch, and a mint is reeding coins when it cuts fine ridges around their edges. The same spelling also stands as a noun for the product of either job, the thatching or a coin's milled edge.
Less common meaning
- 4The craft of covering a roof with thatch, or the thatch itself.
The cottage's reeding had grown thin and mossy over the years.
Reeding is slow work, done bundle by bundle up the slope of the roof.
Note
Middle English already had redynge, reed plus -ing, for this roofing work, and the noun could name both the labor and the finished thatch. Outside some regional speech it has dropped away, so in ordinary writing thatching and thatch are the words to use.
Showing meanings only.
reeding is a form of reed
reed, verb: To mill or mint a coin with reeding, the fine ridges along its edge. Full entry
- Spelling
- reed → reeding: add -ing
Practice
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Origin
From Middle English redynge, equivalent to reed + -ing.