savaging

Pluralsavagings

1. 1
   nouncountable

   A vicious physical attack, or a fierce and wounding piece of criticism.

   The film critic's review was a brutal savaging that nearly ended the director's career.

   He still bears scars from the dog's savaging years ago.

   Similarmauling, attack, hammering, drubbing, panning

   Note

   A countable noun, so it takes an article and a plural: a savaging, savagings in the newspapers. Newspapers are a natural setting for it, where a review or editorial can deliver one. Unlike the gerund of the verb, it takes no direct object. What is attacked follows of (a savaging of the policy), and the same word serves for a dog's bite as for a critic's prose.

2. 2
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of savage.

   Storm winds were savaging the coastline all through the night.

   Reviewers spent the week savaging the company's new policy.

   Note

   The -ing form of a verb that always needs an object: something gets savaged, whether by teeth, by brute force or, figuratively, by critics. In progressive tenses it pairs with be (were savaging the coastline). As a gerund it takes its object directly (savaging the policy did him no favors). An older meaning, 'making savage', is now obsolete.

3. 3
   noununcountable

   Attacks or aggression that a mother animal directs against her own young.

   Experienced breeders watch closely for savaging in the hours after birth.

   The sow's savaging left two of the newborn piglets injured.

Showing meanings only. Show all 3