seating

Pluralseatings (some meanings)

1. 1
   noununcountable

   The chairs, benches, and other places provided for people to sit on.

   The wedding planner arranged seating for all the visiting relatives.

   Stadium seating wraps around the entire field on three sides.

   Similarplaces, chairs

   Note

   A mass noun, like furniture: there is plenty of seating, or columns surrounded with seating, never a seating or two seatings. It gathers chairs and benches into one general supply. Anyone who needs a plural is usually after the timed sitting at a meal, which does count: a first seating, ten spaces per seating.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   A scheduled period during which a group of people is let into a meal, performance, or event and shown to their places.

   The restaurant offers an early seating and a late seating for the holiday meal.

   Guests holding tickets for the second seating waited in the lobby.

   Similarsitting, serving

3. 3
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The act of placing people in their assigned or chosen places.

   The seating of the wedding party followed a strict order of precedence.

   Ushers managed the seating of latecomers during the intermission.

   Similarplacement, arrangement

4. 4
   nouncountable or uncountable

   Fabric or other material used to make or cover seats.

   The manufacturer sources durable seating for its office chairs.

   Worn seating on the antique settee needed replacing.

   Similarupholstery, covering

5. 5
   verb

   Present participle of seat.

   The usher is seating latecomers at the back of the room.

   They are seating the choir behind the orchestra.

   Note

   Every use of the verb behind it is transitive, so the participle always needs an object. An usher is seating guests, never simply seating. Its range runs from fitting a part firmly in place to recognizing delegates' right to a seat at a meeting. The same spelling also works as a noun, and the act of placing people is this participle turned into a name for the activity.

6. 6
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The fitted supports that hold the parts of a machine or structure together, including the housing in which a component rests.

   The valve fits snugly into its seating.

   Vibration had gradually loosened the seating that held the pump in place.

   Similarhousing, mounting, socket

   Note

   Mechanics uses the word in two ways. Collectively, it covers all the fitted supports of a machine. Countably, it names the single housing one component sits in, as when a valve rests in its seating. The verb runs alongside it: a part that sits snugly is said to seat, and a part that works loose usually has a worn or poorly fitted seating.

7. 7
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The part of a ship's floor timbers that rests directly on the keel.

   The carpenter inspected the seating where the floor timbers met the keel.

   Water had seeped into the seating along the length of the keel.

   Note

   In shipbuilding, the floor is not something anyone walks on. The floors are the timbers that cross the keel at the bottom of the hull, and the seating is where they bear on it. That makes it a joint as much as a surface, which is why shipwrights inspect it for fit and for water working its way in.

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