Cruising

How to spell cruising

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce cruising

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does cruising mean?

1. verbMoving along steadily and smoothly, especially by ship, boat, or vehicle at an easy, consistent pace.
2. verbProgressing or winning with apparent ease and little effort, as in a contest or task.

Cruising in a sentence

• The car was cruising along the motorway at a steady seventy.

• The home team was cruising to a comfortable victory by half time.

• The liner kept cruising across the calm bay through the night.

• She finished the exam early, cruising through every question.

Where does cruising come from?

Language of origin: Dutch

This word grows out of the verb 'cruise', which English borrowed in the late 1600s from the Dutch 'kruisen', meaning 'to cross' or 'to sail back and forth'. That Dutch verb came from 'kruis', meaning 'cross', which itself traces back to the Latin 'crux', the word for a cross or stake. The original idea was of a ship criss-crossing a stretch of sea, often while patrolling or hunting for prizes, rather than travelling in a straight line to a single destination. Over time the sense softened from naval patrolling into the relaxed, steady travel we associate with a holiday voyage or an unhurried drive. The spelling keeps the tricky Dutch-derived 'ui' vowel pairing and a single 's' that is pronounced like a 'z', which is exactly where writers tend to slip.

How the word is built

• cruis- (from cruise, to sail to and fro)
• -ing (present participle/gerund suffix)