teaching
Noun pluralteachings (some meanings)
Pluralteachings (some meanings)
- 1Present participle and gerund of teach.
The professor is teaching three courses this semester.
Teaching teenagers to drive takes a great deal of patience.
Note
As a gerund it still behaves like a verb, taking an object or an adverb (teaching three courses, teaching online). That is how to tell it from the profession.
- 2The profession of educating people, or the work a teacher does when helping students learn.
Teaching demands patience, careful preparation, and a real interest in how students think.
She left a corporate job for teaching and never regretted the change.
UsageUsually with no article: go into teaching, teaching has changed. Before a noun it names the role: a teaching job.
Similartutelage
- 3An idea, principle, or doctrine put forward by a religious or philosophical authority.
Compassion lies at the heart of every major teaching the master left behind.
Scholars still debate which teachings can be traced directly to the founder himself.
UsageMost often plural, with of and the teacher: the teachings of Confucius. The singular names one idea: a central teaching.
Showing meanings only.
teaching is a form of teach
teach, verb: To give someone knowledge or skills through instruction, or to do this as one's job. Full entry
- Spelling
- teach → teaching: add -ing
Practice
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Origins
Made of teach + -ing, it goes back to Old English tǣċing or tǣċung ("instruction, direction, teaching") and came down as Middle English teching.
In form teach + -ing, it starts from Proto-Germanic *taikijandz, the present participle of *taikijaną ("to show, point out"), which became Old English tǣċende and then Middle English techinge.