storming

Pluralstormings

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of storm.

   Troops were storming the beach under heavy fire.

   Storming up the stairs, she ignored everyone's questions.

   Note

   One -ing form carries the whole verb, from weather to warfare. After the dummy subject it, the form describes the sky (it was storming all night), a use marked as American. With an object, it describes an assault (storming the beach). As a gerund it keeps that object directly: storming the citadel took hours. By contrast, the noun for an assault needs of: the storming of the citadel.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   The act of capturing a place by a sudden, violent assault.

   The storming of the prison freed hundreds of captives.

   Historians still debate the storming of the citadel and its heavy casualties.

   Similarcapture, seizure, taking, assault

3. 3
   noununcountable

   An outburst in which someone rages or behaves with violent anger.

   The manager's storming did nothing to fix the broken schedule.

   Her sudden storming startled everyone at the dinner table.

   Similarraging, ranting, outburst, tantrum, fury

   Oppositecalm, composure

   Note

   Here the noun comes from the raging verb, so nothing is attacked. A possessive names the person doing it (the manager's storming), where the noun of assault takes of and a place. It takes the plural readily and keeps company with other nouns of temper. The Monthly Magazine in 1840 runs fumings, and threatenings, and stormings together, all powerless against public ridicule.

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