scheduling

Pluralschedulings (some meanings)

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of schedule.

   The committee is scheduling its hearings around the witnesses' availability.

   Scheduling the rehearsals took longer than anyone expected.

   Note

   The -ing form carries every use of the verb, including two specialized ones. In Australia, scheduling a patient means admitting them involuntarily under mental health law. In the US, scheduling a drug means classifying it as a controlled substance. As a gerund it still takes a direct object, as in scheduling the rehearsals, and that is the quickest way to tell it from the countable noun.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The activity or function of timing events so that each one takes place at the best possible moment.

   Like a traffic light that releases each line of cars at just the right time to keep things moving.

   Efficient scheduling lets the airline use every gate without overlap.

   The plant's scheduling determines which customer orders ship first.

   Similarplanning, timing, timetabling, programming, organization

   Note

   A mass noun that names a whole function shared by industry, commerce and computing. It takes no plural and often no article, so one speaks of efficient scheduling or a plant's scheduling. Once the word is counted, as in three schedulings of a play, it has shifted to the time slot itself or a single arrangement.

3. 3
   nouncountable

   An assignment of something to a schedule, or a systematic arrangement of items in a planned order.

   A poor scheduling of the courses left two classes in the same room.

   The new scheduling groups all the lab sessions on Fridays.

   Similararrangement, allocation, timetable, plan, ordering

   Note

   Medicine gives this sense a concrete case. James W. Cooper's Drug-Related Problems in Geriatric Nursing Home Patients (1991) argues that a better pharmacy system could have prevented "inappropriate schedulings of drugs." The noun names what is arranged with of, and it readily takes a judging adjective such as poor, inappropriate or new, because each arrangement can be assessed on its own.

4. 4
   nouncountable

   The particular time at which a given event is set to take place.

   Its 2 a.m. scheduling all but guaranteed the documentary a tiny audience.

   The festival offers three schedulings of the play: Friday evening, Saturday afternoon, and Sunday at noon.

   Similarslot, timing, showing, time

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