shampooing

Pluralshampooings

1. 1
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The act of cleaning something, such as hair or a carpet, with shampoo.

   Her hair felt lighter after a careful shampooing at the salon.

   The upholstery got its first proper shampooing in years.

   Similarwash, cleaning

   Note

   A true noun, and countable: it takes an article and a plural, as in a foyer carpet that needs regular shampooings. That is the quickest way to tell it from the verb's gerund, which takes a direct object instead (shampooing the carpet). "Could use a shampooing" is a natural way to say something looks overdue, as Lou Sullivan's diary says of hair.

2. 2
   verb

   Present participle of shampoo.

   The groomer is shampooing a nervous poodle near the window.

   They were shampooing the carpets when the power went out.

   Note

   The -ing form does double duty. In "she is shampooing" it is a participle, and in "shampooing every day dries the scalp" it is a gerund. Without an object it means washing one's own hair; with one, it takes hair, carpets or upholstery. The verb also has a bath-house sense of kneading the whole body and stretching the limbs, and its spelling is shared with the countable noun.

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