rolling

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle of roll.

   Fog was rolling across the valley by dawn.

   She kept rolling the dough until it was paper-thin.

   Note

   One spelling does two jobs: the -ing form builds the progressive (fog was rolling in) and also serves as a gerund. Because roll is ergative in several senses, the same form works with or without an object, as in the ball is rolling and she is rolling the ball. Particles often follow it, as in rolling up a bandage.

2. 2
   adjective

   Turning around an axis over and over as it moves along.

   A rolling boulder gathered speed as it descended the slope.

   The rolling barrel crashed into the side of the dock.

   Note

   Literal turning is only part of its range. Charles Kingsley's "The Sands of Dee" (1858) gives the rolling mist that came down and hid the land, where nothing spins on an axis and the word carries a heavy, tumbling forward motion instead. That looser use lets it describe mist and cloud as readily as barrels and boulders.

3. 3
   adjective

   Extending in gentle undulations, as a landscape of low hills and shallow valleys.

   The rolling countryside stretched to the horizon in soft green waves.

   Vineyards covered the rolling terrain throughout the region.

   Similarundulating, hilly, wavy

   Oppositeflat, level

   Note

   A landscape word that likes company: gently rolling farmlands and downs, the rolling hills of Ithaca. It usually stands before its noun and is often softened by gently. Unlike the motion senses, it grades naturally, so country can be more rolling or less rolling.

4. 4
   adjective

   Occurring in staggered stages across time and location rather than all at once.

   The utility imposed rolling blackouts across the region as demand spiked.

   Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis throughout the year.

   Similarstaggered, phased, continuous, ongoing

   Note

   Here the point is sequence: things happen in turn rather than together. Its fixed partners are rolling blackouts and brownouts, where power is cut area by area, and on a rolling basis, said of applications or reviews handled throughout a period instead of at one deadline. Planning language uses it too, as in a 90-day rolling business plan, where the span of time is fixed and the window keeps moving forward.

5. 5
   noununcountable

   The action by which something is rolled, turned over or moved along by turning.

   A single rolling of the barrel sent it skidding across the deck.

   The rolling of the logs downstream was handled by experienced crews.

   Similarturning, tumbling, rotation

   Note

   Unlike the gerund, this noun can be counted. Bakers speak of rollings in the plural. Greg Patent and Dave McLean's A Baker's Odyssey (2007) chills dough between rollings and foldings, and each rolling is a separate pass. The plural is the easiest test, because a gerund cannot take it.

6. 6
   adjective

   Making a continuous, low rumbling sound that carries on without breaking.

   Rolling thunder echoed across the valley all evening.

   The rolling beat of distant drums announced the approaching parade.

   Similarrumbling, booming, resounding

7. 7
   adjectiveslangabbreviationellipsis

   Ellipsis of rolling in it: very wealthy.

   After the buyout, the founders were absolutely rolling.

   You'd think they were rolling, the way they spend on vacations.

   Note

   Slang that drops the end of an idiom: rolling in it, meaning rich, loses its in it and keeps the whole meaning. It works after a verb and takes intensifiers readily. Barbara Cartland's Broken Barriers (1938) has a man who was absolutely rolling. Let context do the work, because bare rolling also has a drunken meaning of its own.

8. 8
   adjectivecolloquial

   Drunk to the point of staggering or being unable to walk steadily.

   He was rolling by the end of the night, leaning on his friends for balance.

   She got rolling on cheap wine and lost her keys somewhere.

   Similardrunk, plastered, hammered, legless, smashed

   Oppositesober

9. 9
   adjective

   Having gently sloping edges that give the skin a wavy, uneven surface, as with certain acne scars.

   Rolling scars develop when fibrous bands tether the skin to deeper tissue.

   The clinic offers laser treatment for rolling scars and other texture problems.

   Note

   A skin-care descriptor that borrows the image of gentle hills: the skin rises and dips in soft waves instead of pitting sharply. It is used of acne scars and turns up almost only in the pairing rolling scar. Outside that phrase, a reader will hear the other meanings first.

10. 10
    noununcountable

    A controller technique in which a player rhythmically taps the underside of the controller while holding a thumb on the d-pad, producing several button presses per second.

    Competitive players rely on rolling to rack up points in fast shooting games.

    She practiced rolling for weeks to keep up in arcade titles.

    Note

    A technique from competitive NES Tetris that reverses the usual way of pressing a button. The thumb rests still on the d-pad while the other hand taps the underside of the controller, so the pad comes up to meet the thumb several times a second. Players also call the same technique flyheccing.

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