reviewing

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of review.

   The editor is reviewing the manuscript for errors before publication.

   Reviewing the contract line by line, she caught a costly mistake.

   Note

   One -ing form does two jobs. After be it makes the progressive (she is reviewing the draft), and as a gerund it fills a noun slot (reviewing takes time). In the US, Canada and the Philippines it can also mean going back over learned material before an exam, so students there are reviewing for finals. Unlike the countable noun, the gerund never takes a plural.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The act by which something is gone over or thought about again; a mental run-through.

   A careful reviewing of the evidence in her mind revealed the flaw.

   His constant reviewing of the argument kept him awake all night.

   Similarreconsideration, rehashing, reexamination

   Note

   Here the -ing word has become a true noun, one that can be counted and repeated. In Iain Banks's Whit (1995), a sleepless narrator goes through "many more reviewings" of a fractious day. That plural is what separates it from the verbal gerund. The noun also takes an article, adjectives and an of-phrase, as in a careful reviewing of the evidence.

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