sliding

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of slide.

   The vase went sliding off the tilted shelf during the quake.

   Sliding across the polished floor, the cat lost its footing.

   Note

   One form serves the whole verb, and the verb works in both directions: a vase can be sliding off a shelf, or someone can be sliding it across the table. With be it builds the progressive; as a gerund it names the act itself (sliding into base). Its object-taking uses lean toward stealth: sliding a note under a door, or sliding someone a knowing look.

2. 2
   adjective

   Designed to move, or capable of moving, smoothly along a track or surface.

   The patio's sliding glass panels open onto the garden.

   A sliding partition divides the conference room whenever a smaller space is needed.

   Similarmovable, gliding

   Oppositefixed, stationary

3. 3
   noununcountable

   The motion made by an object that moves smoothly along a surface.

   The slow sliding of the glacier left deep grooves in the rock.

   Engineers measured the sliding of the tectonic plates over many years.

   Similarmovement, drift, slippage, creep, gliding

   Note

   Unlike most -ing nouns, this one takes a plural when the motion comes in separate episodes. Mary Hunter Austin's Starry Adventure (1931) describes "the snake-like slidings of tons of loosened rock and clay." Where the verbal gerund takes a direct object (sliding the panel open), this noun takes of: the sliding of the plates, the slidings of loosened earth.

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