wondering

Pluralwonderings

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of wonder.

   The children spent the whole trip wondering how birds find their way home.

   Wondering about her test results made it hard to concentrate.

   Note

   Two verbs share this form. Wondering at something means marveling at it, struck with surprise or admiration. Wondering how, why or whether means turning a question over in the mind, and that use can take a whole clause as its object. The construction is the quickest way to tell them apart: at points to amazement, while a question word points to doubt and curiosity.

2. 2
   adjective

   Showing curiosity, questioning, and thoughtful consideration.

   She studied the painting with a wondering expression, unsure what it meant.

   The lecture left the students in a wondering mood, full of new questions.

   Similarquizzical, questioning, curious, puzzled, inquisitive

   Oppositeindifferent, incurious

   Note

   An adjective that colors a look, a mood or a silence with puzzled curiosity. In Letitia Elizabeth Landon's Lady Anne Granard (1838), Mary "obeyed in wondering silence," and that silence deepens as events grow stranger, so the word can carry surprise as well as questioning. It compares regularly: more wondering, most wondering.

3. 3
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The mental activity of musing or questioning; a query or feeling of puzzlement held in the mind.

   A deep wondering filled the crowd as the lights slowly dimmed.

   His idle wondering about distant galaxies turned into a lifelong fascination.

   Similarmusing, speculation, curiosity, puzzlement

   Note

   A true noun, unlike the gerund of the verb form. It can be counted and pluralized, as in a lifetime of idle wonderings, and it takes adjectives rather than objects. A deep wondering is this noun, while wondering about the stars is still the verb at work. If an adjective or a plural fits, it is this sense.

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