Dripping

How to spell dripping

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce dripping

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does dripping mean?

1. verbFalling or letting fall in small drops of liquid.
2. adjectiveSo wet that liquid runs off it.
3. nounThe fat and juices that run from roasting meat, often saved as a spread.

Dripping in a sentence

• verb

  Rain was dripping steadily from the broken gutter.

• adjective

  He came in from the storm with dripping wet hair and soaked shoes.

• noun

  Her grandmother spread dripping on toast for a cheap winter breakfast.

• verb

  The tap kept dripping all night and raised the water bill.

• adjective

  The umbrella was dripping as she leaned it against the door.

• noun

  The roast potatoes were cooked in beef dripping for extra flavour.

Where does dripping come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word grows out of the verb 'drip', which descends from Old English 'dryppan', meaning to fall or let fall in small drops. That verb belonged to a wider family of Germanic words built on an imitative root suggesting the sound and motion of liquid falling bit by bit; close relatives survive in the related forms 'drop' and 'droop'. The present participle 'dripping' simply adds the '-ing' ending, and the final consonant of 'drip' doubles to keep the short vowel sound, which is the spelling trap worth fixing in memory: one would never write 'driping'. From the literal sense of liquid falling came the familiar British kitchen noun, the fat and juices that drip from roasting meat and set into a savoury spread. The doubling rule here is the same one that governs 'running', 'stopping', and 'shopping', so the word rewards a single tidy habit rather than rote memorisation.

How the word is built

• drip (to fall in drops)
• doubled p
• -ing (present participle / noun suffix)