staring

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of stare.

   The guard kept staring at the suspicious package on the bench.

   Staring rudely at strangers is something children eventually learn to avoid.

   Note

   The -ing form does two jobs: it builds progressive tenses (was staring at the screen) and works as a verbal noun (staring is rude). Used intransitively it usually takes at. Used transitively it means acting on someone by the look alone, as in staring a rival into silence. The same spelling also serves as a noun with a plural, starings, and as an adjective that compares with more and most.

2. 2
   adjective

   Looking fixedly at someone or something with the eyes wide open.

   Her staring gaze never wavered from the witness on the stand.

   The patient lay still, his staring eyes turned toward the ceiling.

   Similarfixed, unblinking, wide-eyed, glassy

3. 3
   noununcountable

   The act of looking fixedly at someone or something for an extended time.

   The staring of the crowd unnerved the young performer.

   She found his persistent staring both rude and unsettling.

   Similargazing, gaping, ogling

   Note

   A noun that can be counted as well as massed. Herman Melville's Pierre (1852) speaks of "the old starings" of a solitary old man and woman by a cracked hearth-stone, so each stare becomes a separate act repeated over the years. Beside it stands the noun stare, a single persistent gaze. Staring names the act or the habit, and its plural gathers many such looks.

4. 4
   adjective

   Bright, vivid, or garish to the point of being showy or excessive.

   The hallway was painted in staring shades of orange and pink.

   He decorated the float with staring decorations no eye could miss.

   Similargarish, gaudy, lurid, loud, glaring

   Oppositesubdued, muted, understated

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