sunsetting

Pluralsunsettings

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of sunset.

   The vendor is sunsetting support for the legacy operating system in March.

   Regulators are sunsetting the tax credit at the end of the decade.

   Note

   The -ing form of a verb from business and policy, where sunset means to phase out. It takes a direct object such as a product, a program or support for an old system. It serves as a progressive (the vendor is sunsetting support) and as a gerund (sunsetting the credit saved money). Despite the shared spelling, it has nothing to do with the evening-sky noun.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   An instance of the sun going down below the horizon in the evening; a sunset.

   The photographer captured the sunsetting over the calm ocean.

   Tourists gathered on the beach to admire the sunsetting before dinner.

   Similarsundown, dusk

   Oppositesunrise, dawn

   Note

   An old compound rather than a modern coinage: Middle English sonne settynge, the sun's setting, later run together into a single word. It means the same thing as the shorter sunset and counts the same way, so you can speak of many sunsettings. Unlike the "phase out" verb, it keeps entirely to the sky and the close of the day.

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