struggling

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of struggle.

   Swimmers were struggling against the powerful undertow near the rocks.

   Struggling to make ends meet, the family moved to a smaller home.

   Note

   The -ing form does two jobs: in were struggling it builds the progressive, and in Struggling to make ends meet it opens a participial clause. The preposition steers the meaning: struggling against a force, struggling for a cause, struggling with a task that is hard to do. Once it takes an article or a plural (strugglings), it has become the noun for the effort itself.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The action or effort of a person who fights against, resists, or works hard to overcome difficulty.

   After hours of struggling, the climbers finally reached the ledge.

   Her quiet struggling against despair went unnoticed by those around her.

   Similareffort, exertion, toil, striving, resistance

   Oppositesurrender, submission, resignation

   Note

   As a noun it can be counted: it takes the plural strugglings, and Orville Dewey uses that plural twice in one sentence of 1848, setting "the strugglings of genius" against "the strugglings of virtue." Followed by of, it names whose effort is meant. The noun struggle can name a single contest, or strife in general. Struggling instead keeps the sense of effort still under way.

Showing meanings only. Show all 2