riding

Pluralridings

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of ride.

   They are riding horses along the beach this afternoon.

   He spent the whole morning riding the waves at the point break.

   Note

   One form does two jobs here. After be it carries the verb in progress (they are riding), and on its own it names the activity as a noun (riding is good exercise). Because ride works with or without an object, so does this form: riding, riding a bicycle, riding the waves. In informal US and South African English it can also mean giving someone else a lift.

2. 2
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The act of one who rides, or an excursion made on horseback.

   Riding through the hills is her greatest pleasure on the weekend.

   The afternoon riding led the group along a quiet coastal trail.

   Similarride

   Note

   Pastimes can be counted, and this noun takes a plural as readily as the activity it names. Charlotte Mary Yonge's The Heir of Redclyffe (1853) lines it up with its fellows: "your ridings, and shootings, and boatings." For a single trip on horseback, ride is the everyday synonym. Riding is more often the activity in general.

3. 3
   nounCanadacountable

   An electoral district or constituency.

   The riding has shifted toward the opposition in recent elections.

   Boundary changes added two new ridings before the vote.

   Similarconstituency, district

   Note

   Canada's word for a constituency comes from the same trithing as the Yorkshire "third part". A Canadian riding, however, is no longer a third of anything. In Canadian political English it is an ordinary countable noun: a riding can shift between parties, and new ridings appear when boundaries are redrawn.

4. 4
   nouncountable or uncountable

   A path or track cut through woodland.

   The old riding through the beech wood was overgrown with brambles.

   Foresters cleared the riding so the horses could pass easily.

   Similartrack, path, bridleway

   Note

   A woodland word built straight from ride + -ing. The cut way takes its name from what it allows, which is passage through the trees. It is used much like track or path: an old riding, the riding through the beech wood. Royd, thwaite and assart are its near-synonyms, all from the vocabulary of woodland opened up by cutting.

5. 5
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The behavior of a vehicle in motion, such as how much it bounces or sways.

   Engineers tuned the suspension to improve the car's riding over rough surfaces.

   The riding of the carriage grew jerky as the springs wore out.

   Similarhandling

   Note

   Railway writers used this word for how a train felt at speed. Cecil J. Allen praised "the admirable smoothness of the riding" in 1946. It usually takes the and a verdict: the riding was smooth, rough or exemplary. Allen gives the credit to the people who maintained the track. Unlike the act of riding, this sense describes the vehicle and its way, not the person aboard.

6. 6
   nounhistoricalcountable or uncountable

   A ceremonial procession held as part of a festival.

   The riding wound through the market square with banners and music.

   Townsfolk lined the route as the riding passed on midsummer's day.

   Similarprocession, parade, cavalcade

   Note

   A festival procession could carry civic work with it. In Caught in the Web of Words (1977), K.M. Elizabeth Murray describes a burgh's June Common riding. It combined a walk around the bounds of the common pastures with a commemoration of the town's young men. The word belongs to historical description, so use it for processions of that kind and not for a modern parade.

7. 7
   nounhistoricalcountable

   One of the three administrative districts into which Yorkshire, and a few other parts of England, were formerly divided.

   The North Riding of Yorkshire stretched from the moors to the coast.

   Each riding kept its own courts and local officials.

   Note

   This is a different word that happens to share the spelling, and it has nothing to do with riding on horseback. Old Norse þriðjungr meant "a third part," and the earlier English form was trithing. Its t was swallowed by the th of north, east and west, so North Trithing became North Riding. It is now a historical term and is capitalized in names.

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