Churning

How to spell churning

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce churning

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does churning mean?

1. verbStirring, beating, or tossing something with vigorous, restless motion.
2. nounThe unethical practice of making excessive trades in a client's account to generate commission.

Churning in a sentence

• verb

  The ferry rocked as it crossed the churning grey sea.

• noun

  The broker was fined for churning his clients' portfolios to earn extra fees.

• verb

  She felt her stomach churning with nerves before the interview.

• noun

  Regulators flagged the unusual churning of accounts at the small firm.

Where does churning come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word grows from the noun 'churn', which in Old English was 'cyrin', the wooden vessel in which cream was beaten until it thickened into butter. The root is Germanic and is related to old words for a grainy or curdled substance, reflecting the way cream breaks and clumps as it is worked. From the container came a verb meaning to agitate cream in that vessel, and by extension to stir, beat, or toss anything violently. The present participle 'churning' has been used since the medieval period for the literal butter making and, much later, for any restless tossing motion such as that of rough water or a nervous stomach. In modern finance the word took on a figurative life describing the excessive buying and selling of investments to generate fees, the money being 'stirred' pointlessly. The single 'r' and the silent shaping of the 'ch' are the spots writers second-guess, even though the spelling has stayed remarkably stable since Anglo-Saxon times.

How the word is built

• churn (Old English cyrin, a vessel for making butter)
• -ing (present participle / gerund suffix)