ridging

Pluralridgings

1. 1
   nouncountable or uncountable

   A pattern formed by a series of ridges.

   Geologists noted a faint ridging along the cave walls, left by water that once flowed through it.

   The doctor asked how long she had noticed the vertical ridging on her fingernails.

   Similarribbing

   Note

   It describes textured surfaces and works both as a mass noun (faint ridging on a stone) and as a count noun in the plural: Robert Jameson's Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal in 1853 sets intermediate ridgings between curious scoopings. The same spelling is the verb's -ing form, so the ridging on a shell names a pattern while a farmer ridging soil is doing something.

2. 2
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of ridge.

   Crews were ridging the field into long, even rows before planting.

   Low hills kept ridging away to the north as far as we could see.

   Note

   Ridge drops its silent e before -ing, as most such verbs do. Two uses share the form: with an object it means heaping or shaping something into ridges, as a gardener ridging a potato bed; without one it describes land or a surface that runs on in ridges, with no one doing anything to it.

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