stirring

Pluralstirrings

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle of stir.

   Stirring the sauce constantly keeps it from burning at the bottom.

   The chef was stirring the broth over low heat for an hour.

   Note

   One spelling does two grammatical jobs. As a participle it follows be (she was stirring the broth), and as a gerund it works like a noun (stirring keeps it from burning). It carries every sense of stir, not just the kitchen one. Stirring a crowd moves or incites it, and stirring a question agitates it. Once it simply describes, it has become the adjective "inspiring".

2. 2
   adjective

   Rousing strong emotion; making people feel excited, moved, or inspired.

   Like a war drum that quickens the blood and steadies the nerve.

   Her stirring account of the rescue held the entire audience spellbound.

   They sang a stirring anthem that filled everyone in the hall with pride.

   Similarrousing, moving, inspiring, thrilling, stimulating

   Oppositedull, boring, uninspiring

   Note

   A participle that has settled into a true adjective, built from stir plus -ing and now compared as more stirring and most stirring. It gathers around things performed or fought for: a stirring tune, a stirring rendition, a stirring fightback. Unlike the verb form, it takes very and describes rather than acts. A very stirring speech moves its listeners. A man stirring the soup is only cooking.

3. 3
   nouncountable or uncountable

   A moment in which something moves, or the act of mixing something by moving it about.

   Like the first ripple that spreads across an otherwise still pond.

   A faint stirring of unease passed through the crowd as the lights dimmed.

   The first stirring of dawn brought a gentle movement to the harbor waters.

   Similarmovement, flicker, ripple, murmur, glimmer

   Note

   The countable noun is most at home in the plural, often with a word of beginning in front: the early stirrings of a recovery, emotional stirrings. It names a first faint movement, of feeling or of an economy, before anything definite has happened. Used without an article, it names the action itself, as in a sauce that needs constant stirring.

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