sistering

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle of sister.

   Sistering the sagging joists brought the old floor back to level.

   The contractor recommended sistering each split rafter with a fresh board.

   Note

   Builders use the gerund as the name of the repair itself. Sistering a joist means fastening a new length of timber alongside the weak one so the pair carry the load together. As a participle it takes the beam as its direct object (they are sistering the rafters). The other verb sense, being sister to or closely resembling, is obsolete, so the -ing form now points almost always to carpentry.

2. 2
   adjectiveobsolete

   Lying immediately next to and touching another thing; adjoining without any space in between.

   The two sistering parishes met along the line of the old river.

   A plaintfull ſtory from a ſiſtring vale

   1609, William Shakespeare, “A Louers Complaint”

   Note

   A word that pictures neighbors as sisters, lying side by side. Shakespeare's A Lover's Complaint (1609) gives it in "a plaintful story from a sistring vale," spelled without the middle e. The adjective is obsolete and not comparable: nothing is more sistering than another. Today the spelling belongs to the participle of the verb sister, so modern readers will take it as a verb form. Use the adjective only to echo Shakespeare.

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