Bidding

How to spell bidding

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce bidding

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does bidding mean?

1. nounThe act of offering a price for something, as at an auction or in a card game.
2. nounAn order, instruction, or request that someone is expected to carry out.

Bidding in a sentence

• The auction house opened the bidding at five thousand pounds.

• The junior staff scurried to do the manager's bidding all afternoon.

• Online bidding for the painting closed at midnight.

• At his employer's bidding he rebooked every flight that evening.

Where does bidding come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The word grows from the Old English verb 'biddan', meaning 'to ask, beg or pray', which over time tangled with a closely related verb 'beodan', meaning 'to offer, announce or command'. Because the two were so similar in sound and sense, English ended up folding both ideas into one form, which is why 'bidding' can mean both making an offer (as at an auction) and carrying out an order ('doing someone's bidding'). The auction sense, built on the 'offer' meaning, became common in the late 1500s as public sales grew. The familiar greeting 'good day', a shortening of 'I bid you good day', preserves the older 'ask or wish' meaning. The spelling trap is simply the doubled d: 'bid' is one short syllable, so it doubles the final consonant before '-ing', exactly like 'sitting' or 'running'.

How the word is built

• bid (offer/command, from Old English)
• -ing (noun/gerund suffix), with the d doubled before the suffix because bid ends in a single short-vowel consonant