sitting

Pluralsittings

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle of sit.

   He was sitting at the back of the room throughout the lecture.

   Sitting through the long meeting tested everyone's patience.

   Note

   The -ing here has a different history from the noun's. The participle descends from Old English sittende, whose -ende ending later merged with -ing. The nouns, by contrast, were built from sit plus a noun-forming -ing. As a participle it forms the progressive with be (he was sitting). As a gerund it heads phrases like sitting through the meeting. Courts sit too, so the court is sitting means it is in session.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   A continuous period spent seated for a particular purpose, such as a meal, a portrait, or a single task.

   He ate the entire cake in a single sitting.

   The model endured several long sittings for the artist.

   Similarsession

   Note

   Several of English's neighbors build the same noun: Dutch zitting, German Sitzung and Swedish sittning all mean both a sitting and a session, formed the same way from the verb plus a noun ending. It is the countable noun of booked turns, such as two sittings for a meal or three for a portrait. The phrase in one sitting carries the same shape over to any unbroken stretch of work.

3. 3
   nouncountable

   An unbroken period of continuous effort at something, the whole stretch during which one keeps at the activity.

   The author drafted the chapter in one focused sitting.

   Three hours at the keyboard made for an exhausting sitting.

   Similarsession, stint, go (entry)

4. 4
   adjective

   Currently occupying an official or legal post; incumbent.

   The sitting judge recused herself from the controversial case.

   A sitting senator rarely loses to an untested newcomer.

   Similarincumbent, current

   Oppositeformer

   Note

   Here the present participle has hardened into a word for office: a sitting president, judge or senator is the one holding the post now. It grows from the verb's sense of being a member of a deliberative body. It is not comparable and stands before its noun, as in John Lichfield's 2022 remark that "sitting presidents are detested."

5. 5
   nouncountable

   A formal meeting of a legislative body, in the sense of a single gathering rather than a span of time.

   Parliament held an emergency sitting to debate the crisis.

   The bill was introduced during the chamber's evening sitting.

   Similarsession, meeting

   Note

   A legislature measures its working time in these. One sitting is a single gathering of the house, while a session is the longer run that contains many of them. The usage follows the verb: a body in session is said to sit, and each occasion is a sitting. The courts use the word differently, since the judicial sitting is a stretch of the year rather than one meeting.

6. 6
   adjective

   Performed from a seated position rather than standing or lying down.

   The competitor preferred a sitting stance for greater stability.

   Riflery instructors teach the sitting position for steadier aim.

   Similarseated

   Oppositestanding, prone

7. 7
   nouncountable

   The portion of the year during which courts are open and judicial business is conducted.

   The appeal will be heard in the next sitting of the High Court.

   Several major rulings came down during the spring sitting.

   Similarsession, term

   Oppositerecess, vacation

8. 8
   nouncountable

   A session with a spirit medium or fortune-teller, such as a seance.

   The grieving widow attended a sitting hoping to hear from her late husband.

   Skeptics packed the sittings to expose the medium's tricks.

   Similarseance, session, reading

   Note

   Spiritualism borrowed the ordinary word for an appointment. In Arthur Conan Doyle, writing in 1925–26, a character offers to "work" a sitting for someone, mentions a fee of a guinea, and is asked at once whether the medium is genuine. A sitting is something one wants, arranges and pays for. The word names the occasion and takes no position on whether the medium is real.

9. 9
   nouncountable

   A reserved seat assigned to a particular holder, especially a rented pew in a church.

   Each pew-renting family had its own sitting toward the front of the chapel.

   He inherited his father's sitting in the old parish church.

   Similarseat, pew

10. 10
    nouncountable

    The process by which a bird incubates its eggs, keeping them warm until they hatch.

    The goose interrupted her sitting only briefly to feed.

    A successful sitting depends on steady warmth and humidity in the nest.

    Similarincubation, brooding

11. 11
    nouncountable

    The full set of eggs laid and incubated by a brooding bird at one time.

    She slipped a few duck eggs into the hen's sitting.

    The farmer candled each sitting to check the developing chicks.

    Similarclutch, setting

    Note

    The eggs take their name from the brooding: a hen sits on them, and the batch she covers is a sitting. Poultry keepers count in these units, as in thirty-four chicks from eight sittings of eggs. The fuller phrase sittings of eggs makes the meaning plain, because the same word also covers the incubation itself.

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