walking

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of walk.

   He is walking across the bridge to meet us.

   Walking quietly, the hikers crept toward the deer.

   Note

   Two grammatical jobs share this one spelling. As a participle it builds the progressive with be (she is walking home) and opens descriptive clauses. As a gerund it fills a noun slot but keeps its verb habits, so it can take an object: walking the dog, walking ten miles. Its Middle English spellings swing between walkende and walkynge, from Old English wealcende, a present participle.

2. 2
   nouncountable or uncountablenoun from verb

   Verbal noun of walk.

   Brisk walking can lower your blood pressure over time.

   The trail made for pleasant walking in the early morning.

   Note

   As a noun it can be counted. Uncountable, it names the activity and appears in lists with biking and kayaking. Countable, it names separate outings: Anthony Trollope's Ayala's Angel (1878) speaks of "these walkings in Kensington Gardens." That plural is the clearest test separating it from the gerund. A gerund can take an object (walking the dog), but it does not take a plural -s.

3. 3
   adjective

   Suitable for or associated with walking, as in shoes, routes, or tours taken on foot.

   He laced up his sturdy walking boots before the hike.

   The brochure maps out several scenic walking trails along the coast.

   Note

   Here the modifier names a purpose, not an action. Walking shoes are shoes for walking, and a walking tour is one made on foot. That is the reverse of the "living, human" meaning, where the noun itself does the walking. Because it classifies rather than describes, it cannot be graded. Other adjectives go in front of it: good walking shoes.

4. 4
   adjective

   Embodying a given quality so completely that a person becomes a living example of it, as in a walking encyclopedia.

   The old librarian was a walking encyclopedia of the town's history.

   Fashion editors called her a walking advertisement for the new label.

   Similarliving

   Note

   Hyperbole with a fixed position: the adjective always stands directly before its noun, as in a walking contradiction or a walking example of what fitness training can do. It cannot follow a verb in this meaning, and it takes no degrees, so "very walking" is impossible. The figure borrows from the "living, in the flesh" meaning: an abstract quality is pictured as a person up and about on two feet.

5. 5
   adjective

   Existing in living, human form; alive and moving in the world rather than dead or merely imagined.

   The rescuers treated the lone survivor as a walking miracle.

   Old legends spoke of a walking corpse that haunted the moor.

   Similarliving

   Note

   Its home is the phrase a walking X. The noun usually names something that is not alive, such as a dictionary or a miracle, and the adjective gives it flesh and feet. Pairing it with talking adds rhythm and emphasis, as in Kurran Karbal's "Woke Up" for Adventure Time (2020), which puts both words before a sugary disaster. The pattern shades easily into the "living embodiment" meaning.

6. 6
   adjective

   Able to move around on foot despite being injured or ill.

   Triage staff separated the walking wounded from those needing stretchers.

   His walking pneumonia lingered for weeks before he saw a doctor.

   Similarambulatory

7. 7
   adjective

   Describing a style of bass line that moves in steady quarter notes, roughly one to each beat, common in jazz, blues, and Baroque music.

   Like a steady pair of feet pacing out each beat of the music.

   The jazz trio locked into a smooth walking bass beneath the solo.

   A steady walking bass line drove the blues number forward.

   Note

   Musicians use it almost entirely in one pairing: a walking bass, or a walking bassline. The name comes from the image of footsteps. An even, unbroken pulse falls like one foot after the other, and the line seems to stroll beneath the harmony. The same tread links Baroque music of 1600–1750 with twentieth-century jazz, blues and rockabilly.

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