tossing

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle of toss.

   The waves were tossing the small boat from side to side.

   Tossing the salad gently keeps the leaves from bruising.

   Note

   The -ing form does two jobs. In progressive verbs it describes ongoing action (the waves were tossing the boat), and as a gerund it names the act (tossing the salad). It carries every meaning of toss, from throwing upward to flipping a coin to the informal 'throw away'. When it stops naming an action and names a motion, it becomes the noun for rising and falling, which alone takes a plural, tossings.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   A throwing motion, or the sudden rising and falling of something.

   The violent tossing of the ship kept everyone awake below deck.

   The tossing of the dice sent them skittering across the table.

   Similarpitching, rolling, heaving, throwing

   Note

   A noun that can be counted, one lurch at a time. Melville uses the plural in Moby-Dick (1851), where Starbuck balances himself 'to the jerking tossings of his chip of a craft', so each heave of the small boat becomes a separate tossing. Uncounted, as in the tossing of the ship, it names the motion as a whole. Counted, it breaks that motion into its individual jolts.

3. 3
   adjectivevulgarcolloquial

   A vulgar intensifier placed before a noun to express anger, contempt, or annoyance toward someone or something.

   He slammed the tossing laptop shut and stormed out of the room.

   Why won't this tossing machine just work for once?

   Similarbloody, damn, blasted, flaming, bleeding

   Note

   A swearword that only goes in front of a noun, as in this tossing program or that tossing printer. It cannot be graded, so nothing is more tossing than anything else. Because it is vulgar, it belongs to muttered frustration among people who will not mind. In writing or in mixed company it reads as coarse, and a milder intensifier does the same job.

4. 4
   noununcountable

   A method of refining tin by letting the molten metal fall through the air.

   The foundry refined its tin through tossing, dropping the molten metal in fine streams.

   Workers preferred tossing for the cleaner tin it yielded.

   Note

   Tin has a second tossing, which belongs to the refinery rather than the washing floor. Here the metal is already molten, and it falls through air instead of being shaken in water. To keep it apart from the ore-washing process, ask whether the tin is still raw ore or has already been melted.

5. 5
   noununcountable

   The washing of ore by violent shaking in water to separate out the lighter or earthy particles.

   The crushed ore underwent tossing to wash out the lighter waste.

   Tossing separated the valuable mineral from the surrounding earth.

   Note

   A mining word from the dressing of tin ore, also known as tozing. William Pryce's Mineralogia Cornubiensis (1778) pairs it with packing as a fixed phrase, 'tossing and packing'. He warns that some rough waste will not come off by these alone, so the tin must be sifted and buddled again. Tossing was one step in a sequence of washings, not a complete cleaning.

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