shedding

Pluralsheddings (some meanings)

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of shed.

   Snakes grow by shedding their old skin several times a year.

   The trees were shedding their leaves earlier than usual this year.

   Note

   The -ing form does double duty. After a form of be it builds the progressive (the trees were shedding), and on its own it works as a verbal noun that still takes a direct object (shedding their old skin). Its reach is the verb's. A creature sheds skin or fur, a tree sheds leaves, eyes shed tears, and a lamp sheds light.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The act of separating from or casting off something, such as skin, fur, leaves, or an outer layer.

   The snake's shedding of its skin happens several times a year.

   Heavy shedding of feathers signals the start of the molting season.

   Similarmolting, sloughing

   Note

   Unlike the gerund, this noun can be counted and pluralized. The phrase "the sheddings of blood under the Old Testament" speaks of separate acts, each a pouring out. It preserves the older sense of shed as "pour," which survives beside the familiar casting off of skin and feathers. The noun takes of where the verb form takes a direct object: the shedding of its skin, not shedding its skin.

3. 3
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The material or matter that has been cast off or separated from something.

   The groomer collected a whole bag of shedding from the long-haired retriever.

   Brown sheddings from the pines had piled up in soft drifts along the forest trail.

   Note

   The word turns concrete here and names the stuff itself rather than the process. In the plural it has a poetic ring: Wordsworth's Yew-Trees speaks of "sheddings from the pining." Everyday speech also uses it as a mass noun, as in a bag of shedding from a long-haired dog. In that use it stays singular, the way hair or fluff does.

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