sailing

• IPA^(key): /ˈseɪ.lɪŋ/

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• Rhymes: -eɪlɪŋ

From Middle English saylinge, seilinge, variants of sailende, seilende; equivalent to sail +‎ -ing. Cognate with Dutch zeilend (“sailing”).

sailing

1. present participle and gerund of sail

sailing (not comparable)

1. Travelling by ship.

From Middle English sailyng, seyling, from Old English seġling, seġlung (“sailing”), from Proto-West Germanic *siglingu, *seglungu, from Proto-Germanic *siglingō (“sailing”); equivalent to sail +‎ -ing. Cognate with Middle Low German sēgelinge (“sailing”), Swedish segling (“sailing”), Icelandic sigling (“sailing”).

sailing (countable and uncountable, plural sailings)

1. Motion across a body of water in a craft powered by the wind, as a sport or otherwise
2. Navigation; the skill needed to operate and navigate a vessel
3. the time of departure from a port
4. (countable) a scheduled voyage by a ferry or ship.
   • 1951 November, K. Westcott Jones, “Parkeston Quay and the Antwerp Continental Service”, in Railway Magazine, page 760:

     New ships were built to the order of the Great Eastern Railway, and the service frequency increased, until March 1879, saw a sailing every weekday to Rotterdam, and a thrice-weekly service to Antwerp.

• clear sailing
• plain sailing
• Thames sailing barge

• “sailing”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

• Gilanis, ailings, aisling, nilgais