separating

Pluralseparatings

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of separate.

   The river kept separating into smaller channels as it neared the delta.

   Separating the egg yolks from the whites takes a steady hand.

   Note

   The -ing form drops the final e of separate and keeps both of the verb's grammars. Used transitively, it takes an object: separating the yolks from the whites. Used intransitively, a thing does it to itself: a river separating into channels. Only the verb produces this form. The adjective separate shares the lemma's spelling, but it has no -ing form.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   An act or occasion of dividing things or pulling them apart.

   Each separating of the fighting dogs left the handlers exhausted.

   The gradual separating of the ice sheets alarmed the researchers.

   Similarseparation, parting, division, splitting, detachment

   Oppositejoining, merging, union

   Note

   Here the gerund has become a countable noun, with a plural, separatings. The difference shows in the grammar. The noun takes a determiner and an of-phrase (each separating of the dogs), while the verbal -ing form takes a direct object (separating the dogs). A test is whether you can put "the" in front and "of" after; if you can, it is the noun.

3. 3
   adjective

   Of a zipper, able to open so that its two sides detach completely from each other instead of only opening along part of their length.

   She chose a separating zipper for the costume so the two panels could come fully apart.

   The tailor replaced the broken slider on the jacket's separating zipper.

   Similaropen-ended

   Note

   A tailoring word with one job: classifying zippers by what happens at the bottom. On the separating kind, the two halves come fully apart. To close it, a pin on one side is slipped into a box on the other before the slider goes up. Front-opening jackets need it. The opposite is the closed-end zipper of jeans, skirts and pillow covers, which stays joined at one end.

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