surfacing

Pluralsurfacings (some meanings)

1. 1
   noununcountable

   The action of rising upward and emerging above the surface of water or another medium.

   The submarine's surfacing was timed to avoid enemy radar.

   A turtle's surfacing for air can be hard to spot in choppy water.

   Similaremergence, ascent

   Oppositedive, descent

   Note

   Here each emergence counts as an event, so the word is readily counted. Researchers tally a dolphin's surfacings per minute, and a submarine's surfacing is a single timed maneuver. The 1979 album The Fine Art of Surfacing plays on the word, treating coming up as a craft, one that a line on the album mourns as nearly lost.

2. 2
   verb

   Present participle of surface.

   Old tensions are surfacing again within the committee.

   The diver is surfacing slowly to avoid the bends.

   Note

   The -ing form carries every use of the verb, and those uses split by whether there is an object. Without one, something rises or comes to light: a diver surfacing, old rumors surfacing. With one, it either lays a finish or brings something up: crews surfacing a road, an app surfacing older posts. The same spelling also works as a noun, as in the paving material.

   Crews are surfacing the car park this week.

   The app keeps surfacing older posts in my feed.

3. 3
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The material applied to form the outer layer of a road, floor, track, or other surface.

   The contractor chose a rubber surfacing for the running track.

   Cracks in the surfacing let water seep into the road base.

   Similarpaving, coating, covering

   Note

   A material noun that happily takes a plural: road builders speak of asphalt road surfacings, where the plural names kinds or layers of finish rather than separate objects. Keep it apart from the verb form by word order. Surfacing the road is the work being done, and the road's surfacing is what was laid down.

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