Blaming

How to spell blaming

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce blaming

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does blaming mean?

1. verbHolding someone or something responsible for a fault, error, or bad outcome.

Blaming in a sentence

• There is no point blaming the weather for a poorly planned trip.

• The manager kept blaming his team instead of reviewing his own decisions.

Where does blaming come from?

Language of origin: French

This is the present participle of the verb 'blame', which English took from the Old French blasmer, meaning 'to reproach, accuse, or find fault with'. That French verb came in turn from the Late Latin blasphemare, 'to revile or speak evil of', which the medieval church narrowed from its religious sense of speaking irreverently about sacred things. The Latin itself was borrowed from the Greek blasphemein, built from elements meaning roughly 'evil-speaking', and the very same Greek source gave English the much harsher word 'blaspheme'. So 'blame' and 'blaspheme' are long-lost twins from one Greek root, one softened into everyday fault-finding and the other kept for irreverence. The spelling trap in 'blaming' is purely mechanical: the silent 'e' of 'blame' is dropped before the '-ing' ending, so it is never written 'blameing'.

How the word is built

• blame (root, from Old French blasmer 'to reproach')
• -ing (present participle / gerund suffix)