summing

Pluralsummings

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of sum.

   Summing the quarterly figures took the accountant all afternoon.

   By summing each row and column, the analyst checked the spreadsheet for errors.

   Note

   The -ing form does both jobs of the verb: adding figures together and giving a summary. As a participle it follows be (she was summing the column). As a gerund it acts as a noun (summing the rows took an hour) but takes no plural. The final m doubles before the ending, as in summed. Once the word takes a plural, summings, it has become the noun for a total.

2. 2
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The act of addition, or the total that results from it.

   A careful summing of the expenses revealed an error in the budget.

   The summing of the votes confirmed the winner late that night.

   Similartally, addition, count, total

   Note

   A bookkeeper's noun that can be counted. John Dougall's The Young Man's Best Companion (1815) adds together "the particular summings" of each page of accounts to reach the total of the whole. In that passage, summed up means "added up," not "summarized." Unlike the gerund of the verb, this noun takes an article and a plural, so you can speak of a summing or several summings.

3. 3
   pronouncolloquial

   Alternative form of something.

   Honestly, that new track is summing else, you've got to hear it.

   Can you grab summing from the store for me?

   Note

   A spelling that writes "something" the way it sounds in casual speech. It has nothing to do with addition: it only shares its letters with the participle of sum and comes from a separate origin. Keep it for dialogue or deliberately informal writing. In ordinary prose, something is the form to use in all its senses, from an unspecified thing to someone notable.

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