sinking

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of sink.

   The ferry was sinking by the bow as passengers scrambled toward the lifeboats.

   He felt his spirits sinking with every piece of bad news that arrived.

   Note

   The participle works in two directions, because sink does. A ferry can be sinking on its own, or a crew can be sinking it. The same split runs through the other meanings, as in sinking a ball into a pocket or sinking a post into the ground. The intransitive side carries the figurative use, where spirits are sinking. When it heads a noun phrase instead, it behaves like the countable verbal noun.

   The torpedo crew was sinking a freighter a week.

   She was sinking the last ball into the corner pocket when the lights went out.

2. 2
   noun

   Gerund of sink.

   The sinking of the freighter became the subject of a long inquiry.

   Engineers measured the gradual sinking of the bridge piers over a decade.

   Note

   A verbal noun that can be counted: it takes a plural, sinkings, for a series of separate descents, as when land subsides in stages into deep water. Followed by of, it names either what goes down (the sinking of a ship) or what is made by digging, because sink also means to dig out. Tunnel engineers and miners speak of the sinking of a shaft.

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