resisting

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of resist.

   The troops were resisting the advancing army with everything they had.

   He found himself resisting the temptation to reply angrily.

   Note

   A verb form with two jobs. After a form of be it builds the progressive (the troops were resisting). Without be it works as a gerund that still takes a direct object, as in resisting the temptation. It can also stand with no object at all, from the intransitive 'oppose' use: they kept resisting. Once it takes an article or an of-phrase, it has crossed into the noun meaning resistance.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The act of opposing, withstanding, or refusing to yield to something.

   The strikers' steady resisting forced management back to the bargaining table.

   There is no point in resisting once the decision has been finalized.

   Similaropposition, defiance, struggling

   Oppositecompliance, submission, surrender

   Note

   Here the -ing word has become a true noun. It takes a plural, resistings, and an of-phrase for whatever is opposed. The Insurance Times in 1901 lists surety companies' 'resistings of payments' beside 'their scalings of losses', which treats each refusal as a separate act that can be counted. Use this noun when you mean individual acts of opposing. For a general stance, resistance is the usual choice.

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