siding

Pluralsidings

1. 1
   nounCanadaUScountable or uncountable

   A material used to cover and protect the outer walls of a house or other building.

   Like overlapping roof shingles, but running down the walls instead of across the top.

   The contractor recommended vinyl siding for its low maintenance.

   Storm winds tore several panels of siding off the garage.

   Similarcladding

   Note

   Here the -ing is the one that names a material or collection, as in roofing or flooring: siding is simply stuff for the sides. The word belongs to Canadian and American English. It works as a mass noun (cheap vinyl siding, a house in cedar siding) and as a countable one for a particular product. It is unrelated in formation to the railroad track, which takes a different -ing.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   A short stretch of track beside the main railroad line, connected to it by switches, used for loading, unloading, storing trains, or letting one train pass another.

   Like a passing place on a narrow one-lane road, where one driver pulls aside to let another through.

   The dispatcher directed the slower train onto a siding to let the express pass.

   Several boxcars sat on the siding waiting to be unloaded.

   Similarsidetrack, spur

   Note

   A railway word built on the idea of being off to one side, not on the material-naming -ing of the wall covering. The usual phrase is on a siding: in Somerset Maugham's The Moon and Sixpence (1919), two men sleep in an empty truck on a siding near the station. Storing and loading are its general uses. Letting two trains meet or pass on a single line is probably an American use.

3. 3
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of side.

   By siding with management, he quickly lost the trust of his coworkers.

   The senator was siding with the opposition on this controversial vote.

   Note

   A participle that nearly always brings with along: siding with one party, siding with management. In with turns up only rarely. The same form also does a builder's job, since to side a house is to fit it with the wall covering. Context, not spelling, tells "siding with the strikers" apart from "siding the garage".

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