vetting

1. 1
   noununcountable

   A careful checking or investigation of a person or organization to judge their suitability, reliability, or safety.

   The agency's vetting of contractors revealed several safety violations.

   Journalists undergo rigorous vetting before gaining access to classified briefings.

   Similarscreening, scrutiny, checking, examination

   Note

   Here the word has hardened into a countable noun that takes a plural. Brodeur, Gill and Töllborg's Democracy, Law, and Security (2003) counts nearly 18,000 security vettings by a military intelligence service in one year, with each check a separate event. That countability separates it from the verb form. You can carry out a vetting, or many vettings, while the participle only describes the act in progress.

2. 2
   verb

   Present participle of vet.

   The committee is vetting each proposal for hidden costs.

   Security staff are vetting every visitor before the summit begins.

   Note

   The t doubles before -ing, and the form belongs only to the verb of checking and approving. It carries continuous tenses (the board is vetting her) and fills noun slots as a gerund (vetting takes weeks). The vet who treats animals and the veteran are nouns, so they have no -ing form. Once the word takes a plural or an article, it has become the noun for a check.

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