shrugging

Pluralshruggings

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of shrug.

   He answered every question by shrugging and looking away.

   Shrugging off the criticism, she turned back to her work.

   Note

   The -ing form serves as both participle and verbal noun, and it shares its spelling with the noun for the gesture. As a verb it works with or without an object: she was shrugging her shoulders, or she was simply shrugging. The gesture once signaled dread as well as doubt or unconcern. In present use it mostly conveys indifference.

2. 2
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The act of raising and lowering the shoulders, as a gesture of doubt or indifference.

   The constant shrugging of the new recruits annoyed the sergeant.

   A slight shrugging of her shoulders told me she had no idea.

   Note

   Unlike a shrug, which is a single movement, this noun treats the gesture as an activity, and it can be pluralized. William Craig Brownlee in 1824 deplored "violent shruggings of the shoulders" alongside "thumpings on the pews" in Philadelphia. It readily takes an adjective (violent, slight, constant) and is often followed by of the shoulders, which names the body part even though shrugging already implies it.

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