shading

1. 1
   noununcountable

   The act of making something darker, or the darkening that results from it.

   The portrait gained a sense of volume once she refined the shading on the cheeks.

   Subtle shading across the map distinguished the higher elevations from the valleys.

   Note

   As a mass noun it names the darkening itself, the shading on a portrait or a map. Made countable, it shifts toward gradations. The delicate shadings of color in a painted sunset are the fine steps between tones, not patches of dark. The plural is the natural way to speak of subtle variation, and it pairs readily with delicate and subtle.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   A structure or covering that provides shelter from the sun's light and heat.

   A canvas awning offered the only shading on the exposed terrace.

   The pergola was built to supply shading for the outdoor dining area in summer.

   Similarshelter, cover

   Note

   The shelter need not be built. W. H. Maxwell's The Fortunes of Hector O'Halloran (1843) places a bench "under the shading of a fine old elm," where the leaves themselves are the covering. The word names what casts the shade rather than the shade it casts. Shade is the cool, dim area, and shading is the canopy, awning or pergola that makes it.

3. 3
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of shade.

   The hill was shading the valley by late afternoon.

   Shading the lamp with her hand, she read the letter in the dim room.

   Note

   The verb form carries every sense of shade, not only the light-blocking one. A speaker can be shading the truth, a blue can be shading into green, and an artist can be shading a sketch. The gerund is easy to confuse with the noun for darkening. The gerund takes a direct object (shading the cheeks took an hour), while the noun takes an article and can be made plural.

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