tiring

Pluraltirings (some meanings)

1. 1
   adjective

   Causing a person to lose energy and feel a need to rest.

   The endless meetings made for a tiring afternoon.

   Long-distance driving is more tiring than most people expect.

   Similarexhausting, draining, tiresome, wearing, fatiguing

   Oppositerestful, relaxing, refreshing, invigorating

2. 2
   verb

   Present participle of tire.

   The marathon was tiring even the most seasoned runners.

   Visitors are tiring of the constant delays at the airport.

   Note

   One spelling carries the verb in both directions. In the marathon was tiring the runners, it means making them weary; in the runners were tiring, it means becoming weary. Followed by of, it shifts from fatigue to impatience: tiring of the delays means growing bored with them, not exhausted by them. Falconers once used the verb for a hawk seizing and tearing at prey, a use now obsolete, which sits beside the hawk's tough ration.

3. 3
   noununcountable

   The process of becoming weary or of making someone weary.

   The gradual tiring of the muscles signals that it is time to stop.

   Repeated exertion leads to a tiring of the legs that no stretching can prevent.

   Similarfatigue

4. 4
   nouncountable

   Bits of bone and tough tissue from a carcass, given to a hawk to blunt its hunger.

   The falconer offered the bird a tiring to keep its appetite in check.

   A good tiring occupies a restless hawk without satisfying it fully.

   Note

   A falconer's term for a deliberately tough ration. Bone and gristle keep a restless hawk busy and dull its hunger without giving it a full meal, so the bird stays keen to hunt. Unlike the noun for growing weary, this one is countable: a falconer offers a tiring, and several are tirings.

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