tying

Pluraltyings

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of tie.

   Tying the knots correctly is the first thing every sailor learns.

   The nurses were tying clean bandages around the soldier's arm.

   Note

   The spelling is the first thing to learn. Tie drops its e and turns i to y before -ing, giving tying. As a gerund it takes its object directly (tying the knots), where the noun of fastening needs of (the tying of sutures). It also carries the scoring sense, and in American use it can take a rival as its object: a late goal tying the leaders.

2. 2
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The act or process of fastening or binding something; also a cord, band, or knot that serves as a binding.

   The tying of surgical sutures demands a steady, practiced hand.

   A firm tying held the bundle of firewood together for the long journey.

   Similarbinding, fastening, knotting, lashing

   Oppositeuntying

   Note

   The noun is older than it looks. Besides being tie plus -ing, it descends from Old English tīging, "connection", from a root meaning "to tug, draw". It also counts: each act of fastening is one tying, so the word takes a plural. John Macgowan, in 1772, complains of "several tyings and untyings" before her ladyship was pleased with her own foot.

3. 3
   noununcountable

   The act or process of washing crushed ores in a buddle to separate valuable mineral from lighter waste.

   The tying of the crushed ore left a concentrate rich in tin.

   After tying, the heavier mineral settled at the head of the buddle.

   Similarwashing

   Note

   An ore-dresser's word with nothing of knots or string in it. The work happens on the buddle, where flowing water carries off the lighter waste rock, the gangue, while the denser metal-bearing grains settle out. Use it for the operation itself, as in "the tying of the crushed ore". Outside mining, a reader will hear only fastening, so the word needs its setting around it.

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