Dating

How to spell dating

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce dating

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does dating mean?

1. nounThe activity of meeting someone socially in a romantic context, with a view to a relationship.
2. nounThe process of establishing the age or chronological position of an object or event.

Dating in a sentence

• After the divorce she felt nervous about dating again.

• Radiocarbon dating confirmed the bones were thousands of years old.

• Online dating has changed how many couples first meet.

• The museum used tree-ring dating to verify the timber's origin.

Where does dating come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This is the present participle and gerund of the verb 'date', which traces back through Old French to the Latin word data, meaning 'given'. Roman documents often closed with the formula data Romae, literally 'given at Rome', noting the place and time a letter or charter was issued, and that single word data drifted into the meaning of 'the time something is recorded'. English took 'date' in the late 1300s as the noun for a point in time, and the verb sense of marking or fixing a time followed naturally. The romantic meaning is much younger, an American development of the early twentieth century, where 'a date' came to mean a social appointment with a romantic partner and then the ongoing activity of courtship. The spelling keeps the silent 'e' of 'date' tucked inside, dropped before the -ing, so the trap is remembering it is built on 'date' and not spelled 'dateing'.

How the word is built

• date (root, from Latin data: given)
• -ing (forming a gerund or present participle)