shivering

Pluralshiverings

1. 1
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The trembling or repeated shaking action of a person or thing.

   A sudden shivering ran through the patient as the fever took hold.

   The shivering of the small dog showed how cold the night had become.

   Similartrembling, shaking, shuddering, quivering

   Note

   Medical writing counts it in episodes. Fleetwood Churchill and Robert M. Huston's The Diseases of Females (1847) lists "shiverings and flushings" among a patient's symptoms. There the plural marks separate bouts rather than one continuous tremor. In ordinary prose the noun usually stays singular: it takes a single article (a sudden shivering) or an of-phrase naming who trembles (the shivering of the small dog).

2. 2
   verb

   Present participle of shiver.

   The hikers were shivering by the time they reached the shelter.

   She kept shivering even after wrapping herself in two blankets.

   Note

   The -ing form carries every meaning of shiver, not only trembling with cold or fear. Sailors shiver a sail by steering close to the wind, so a helmsman can be shivering the sails, with an object after the verb. Because shiver can also mean to break into splinters, glass can be shivering into fragments. When the form names the act itself, it becomes the noun for a trembling.

Showing meanings only. Show all 2