shoeing

Pluralshoeings

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of shoe.

   By noon the farrier had finished shoeing the entire team of draft horses.

   Shoeing demands both strength and a calm manner around skittish animals.

   Note

   The -ing form keeps the final e of shoe, so it is spelled shoeing, never shoing. It carries every use of the verb: shoeing a horse, shoeing yourself, or shoeing an object with a protective layer. As a gerund it names the activity without counting it. Once it takes a plural, shoeings, it has become the farrier's noun.

2. 2
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The work of fitting a horse or other animal with horseshoes.

   The blacksmith charged a flat fee for each shoeing.

   Proper shoeing every six weeks kept the racehorse sound.

3. 3
   nounslangcountable

   A severe beating or thrashing inflicted on someone.

   The two rivals gave each other a proper shoeing outside the bar.

   He still remembers the shoeing he took in that alley years ago.

   Similarbeating, thrashing, kicking, hiding

   Note

   Slang for a beating, and it nearly always travels with give: someone gives someone a shoeing. Ronan O'Gara uses it of a rugby training ruck in Ronan O'Gara: My Autobiography (2010). James Dixon's The 3CW Encyclopedia (2013) uses it of wrestlers jumping two opponents. Andrew O'Hagan's The Illuminations (2015) intensifies it as "a right shoeing." Keep it for casual talk, never for formal writing.

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