# smoothing

Pronunciation: say "SMOOTH-ing" /ˈsmuːðɪŋ/

## Noun

1. The act or process by which something is made smooth.
   - Simple: The act of making a surface flat and even.
   - _The smoothing of the road surface left it free of bumps and ridges._
   - _Each coat of varnish required a light smoothing before the next was applied._
3. The creation of an approximating function that captures the important patterns in a dataset while leaving out noise and fine-scale fluctuations.
   - Simple: A way of drawing a simple curve through messy data to show the main trend, not the noise.
   - _The analysts applied smoothing to reveal the seasonal pattern hidden in daily sales._
   - _Heavy smoothing can erase real features along with the noise._
4. The reduction of a diphthong to a single vowel sound, also called monophthongization.
   - Simple: Saying a two-part vowel sound as a single, simpler vowel.
   - _Smoothing in this dialect collapses the vowel of 'tower' into a single long sound._
   - _The smoothing of 'layer' to a near-monophthong is typical of casual speech._

## Verb

2. Present participle and gerund of smooth. — present participle and gerund of smooth
   - Simple: Present participle and gerund of smooth. Use this -ing form for an ongoing action or as a noun.
   - _The baker is smoothing frosting across the top of the cake._
   - _Smoothing the plaster carefully prevents cracks from forming later._

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/smoothing (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).