surveying

Pluralsurveyings

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of survey.

   The team spent the morning surveying the steep hillside for the new highway.

   Surveying requires both precise instruments and patient fieldwork.

   Note

   Here the -ing form carries the full reach of survey. Someone can be surveying a view from a height, the condition of a building, a coastline by angle and measurement, or a group of people by questionnaire. One test separates it from the name of the measuring discipline: the verb form takes an object (surveying the hillside, surveying voters), while the discipline stands alone.

2. 2
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The practical science and work of measuring precisely where points lie and how far each is from the others.

   Like drawing a precise map by measuring every distance and angle on the ground.

   Modern surveying relies on satellite positioning to map large regions quickly.

   He took a course in surveying before joining the engineering firm.

   Note

   A field that takes its name directly from the verb, survey plus -ing, and keeps that verb's measuring sense. Its work is fixing points on, above or below the earth's surface through distances, angles and elevations, traditionally with theodolites and total stations. As the name of a subject it usually stands without an article, as in a course in surveying, though the plural surveyings also exists.

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