Dealing

How to spell dealing

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce dealing

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does dealing mean?

1. nounThe activity of buying, selling, or distributing something, especially as a business.
2. nounThe way a person manages situations or behaves in relations with others.

Dealing in a sentence

• He was arrested for illegal dealing in stolen car parts.

• Dealing with angry customers all day left her exhausted.

• The firm was investigated for insider dealing on the stock market.

• His honest dealing earned him the trust of every client.

Where does dealing come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The word grows from the Old English verb dǣlan, meaning 'to divide, distribute, or share out', which in turn came from dǣl, a noun meaning 'a part or portion' (the same root that survives in the modern word 'deal' and is a cousin of German 'Teil', meaning 'part'). The original sense was strongly tied to dividing something up, so an early 'dealing' was literally a sharing or apportioning of goods. From this notion of handing out portions, the meaning broadened during the medieval period to cover trading, distributing, and conducting business with others. By the time the -ing form settled into its modern use, 'dealing' covered both the buying and selling of goods and the wider idea of how a person behaves in their relations with others, as in 'fair dealing'. The spelling is refreshingly regular: the long 'ea' of 'deal' stays put and the standard -ing ending is simply added, with no doubled consonant.

How the word is built

• deal (Old English dǣlan: to divide, share)
• -ing (forming a noun or present participle)