Sailing
adj, noun, verb ·Moderate ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 Motion across a body of water in a craft powered by the wind, as a sport or otherwise. countable, uncountable
- 2 the departure of a vessel from a port wordnet
- 3 Navigation; the skill needed to operate and navigate a vessel. countable, uncountable
- 4 the activity of flying a glider wordnet
- 5 The time of departure from a port. countable, uncountable
Show 3 more definitions
- 6 riding in a sailboat wordnet
- 7 A scheduled voyage by a ferry or ship. countable
"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."
- 8 the work of a sailor wordnet
- 1 present participle and gerund of sail form-of, gerund, participle, present
- 1 Travelling by ship. not-comparable
Example
More examples"There was a ship sailing on the sea."
Etymology
From Middle English saylinge, seilinge, variants of sailende, seilende; equivalent to sail + -ing. Cognate with Dutch zeilend (“sailing”).
From Middle English seyling, sayling, 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”).
Related phrases
More for "sailing"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.