slowing

Pluralslowings

1. 1
   nouncountable or uncountable

   A decrease in speed; the process of moving or happening more gradually.

   The slowing of the economy worried investors throughout the quarter.

   Doctors observed a steady slowing in the patient's heart rate.

   Similardeceleration, slackening, easing, decline

   Oppositeacceleration, quickening

   Note

   Railway writing gives the noun its most concrete use, where a slowing is a particular place a train must ease off. Cecil J. Allen writes of "the Wycombe slowing" in Trains Illustrate (1961), and RAIL in 2021 of "many slowings over junctions and curves." Counted like this, it names single episodes rather than a general trend, as when Oliver Sacks pictures Parkinsonism in Awakenings (1973) as "odd speedings and slowings."

2. 2
   verb

   Present participle of slow.

   The economy is slowing after months of rapid growth.

   I could feel the boat slowing as the wind died down.

   Note

   One form does two jobs here. As a participle it follows be in progressive tenses, and it works in both directions: something can be slowing the traffic, or the traffic itself can be slowing. As a gerund it names the action but keeps its verb habits, so it can still take an object (slowing the car took effort). Once it takes a plural, it has become the countable noun.

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