winging

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of wing.

   Flocks of starlings came winging over the rooftops at dusk.

   Without any notes, she ended up winging the entire presentation.

   Note

   One spelling carries several verbs: winging can describe birds in flight, an improvised talk, a shot that only grazes the arm, or a ball being thrown. The improvising use is the idiom winging it, though a direct object can replace it. Context sorts these out. Context must also separate them from the complaining verb, an unrelated word that happens to share this spelling.

2. 2
   SayWIN-jing/ˈwɪnd͡ʒɪŋ/

   verbslangAustraliaNew ZealandUK

   Present participle and gerund of winge. Chiefly British and Australian informal; the usual spelling is whingeing or whinging.

   Note

   The complaining sense, spelled without the h of whinging. Winge is a variant of whinge, and it is slang in British, Australian and New Zealand English. Because the spelling collides with the flying and improvising verb, a sentence like "the kids were winging" can briefly mislead a reader. Whinging is the form that cannot be misread.

3. 3
   noununcountable

   The water sport of riding a hydrofoil board while holding a handheld inflatable wing to catch the wind.

   Like windsurfing crossed with hydrofoiling, except the rider holds the wing freely instead of fixing it to a mast.

   Winging combines elements of windsurfing and foiling into one sport.

   On windy weekends, the bay fills with people out winging.

   Note

   This is the short name for the sport, and wing foiling is the longer one. It works only as an uncountable activity noun. People go winging or are out winging, but nobody does "a winging" or "two wingings". In that position it reads naturally alongside other sport names such as surfing or sailing.

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