stroking

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of stroke.

   The crew was stroking a steady thirty-two as it passed the boathouse.

   She spent the afternoon stroking putts on the practice green.

   Note

   Stroke drops its final e before -ing, as most verbs ending in a silent e do. The form usually takes a direct object (a crew stroking thirty-two, a player stroking the ball into the net) and with out or through it means crossing text off a page: stroking out the old figures. The same spelling also names the act itself, a noun with its own plural, strokings.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The act of making strokes, or of giving someone or something a stroke.

   A little gentle stroking soon calmed the frightened puppy.

   The painter's quick, confident stroking of the brush gave the sky its texture.

   Similarpetting, caressing

3. 3
   noununcountable

   In sewing, the process of arranging small pleated gathers in cloth so that they lie in even, regular order.

   Careful stroking gave the smocked bodice its neat rows of tiny gathers.

   The seamstress finished the stroking before she sewed the waistband to the skirt.

   Note

   A needlework term for the step that tidies gathered cloth: each tiny fold is laid neatly beside the next, so the fullness spreads evenly instead of bunching in one place. Plait here means a fold of fabric, the word most sewers now spell pleat, not a braid of hair. It is a workroom word, met in dressmaking and smocking instructions rather than in general writing.

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