singing

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of sing.

   The choir was singing when the lights suddenly went out.

   Birds were singing outside the window at dawn.

   Note

   The -ing form does two jobs. After be it builds the progressive (the choir was singing). As a gerund it fills a noun slot but keeps verb habits, taking an object or an adverb (singing hymns loudly). That is the test against the noun for vocal music, which takes adjectives instead (her loud singing). Transitive uses carry over as well, as in singing a child to sleep.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The act or practice of producing musical tones with the voice.

   Years of singing had given her remarkable breath control.

   The teacher praised the boy's singing during the recital.

   Note

   The core noun, formed in Middle English as syngyng: simply sing plus -ing, the same pattern that gives every other meaning here its shape. It is usually uncountable, as in good singing or years of singing. The plural singings exists for separate occasions or performances, but most writers reach for it rarely.

3. 3
   nouncolloquialuncountable

   The act of revealing information or giving evidence against another person.

   Prosecutors built their case on the informant's singing about the cartel.

   Word of his singing spread fast, and old allies stopped returning his calls.

   Similarsquealing

4. 4
   adjective

   Having a smooth, flowing quality.

   The choreography had a singing quality, each movement melting into the next.

   She admired the singing lines of the new sports car's bodywork.

   Similarflowing, fluid, smooth, lyrical, graceful

   Oppositejerky, choppy

   Note

   A musician's word for a melodic line that moves without breaks or sharp angles, close to what legato marks in a score. It is gradable, so a more singing tone and the most singing phrase are both natural. It also travels well beyond music, to dance, prose or the curve of a car body. Wherever it goes, it means the parts connect as smoothly as a sung phrase.

5. 5
   adjective

   Producing a whistling sound caused by escaping steam.

   The singing valve on the boiler signaled that pressure was building.

   A singing radiator hissed in the corner of the drafty old apartment.

   Similarhissing

6. 6
   noununcountable

   A ringing sound heard in the ears.

   After the explosion, a high singing in his ears drowned out every other sound.

   She mentioned a persistent singing in her ears to the doctor.

   Similarringing, buzzing

   Note

   An everyday, sensory name for what doctors call tinnitus, a ringing heard with no outside source. It usually comes in the phrase a singing in the ears. Kipling's "The Phantom Rickshaw" (1888) uses it in an uncanny scene, where a voice seems to call the narrator's name from a vast distance.

7. 7
   nounUSuncountable

   A meeting held so that participants can sing shape-note songs together.

   Families drove in from neighboring towns for the all-day singing at the meeting house.

   The annual singing drew dozens of voices into the four-part hymns.

   Note

   An American use in which the activity names the whole event. People go to a singing, or to an all-day singing, the way they might go to a meeting. Because the songs are shape note songs, the word points to a particular tradition rather than to any concert. Elsewhere it may be read as plain vocal music, so let context make the gathering clear.

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