Freezing

How to spell freezing

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce freezing

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does freezing mean?

1. adjectiveExtremely cold; cold enough to turn water to ice.
2. verbThe present participle of freeze: turning to ice or becoming solid with cold.

Freezing in a sentence

• adjective

  The office was freezing because the heating had failed overnight.

• verb

  The pipes were freezing solid during the cold snap.

• adjective

  Commuters waited on the platform in freezing fog.

• verb

  The lake is freezing over earlier than usual this winter.

Where does freezing come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word descends from the Old English verb frēosan, meaning 'to turn to ice' or 'to be bitterly cold', which in turn came from a Proto-Germanic root frēusan that also gave German frieren and Dutch vriezen. The same ancient root reaches back to a Proto-Indo-European base meaning 'frost' or 'to burn with cold', and it is the source of the related English words 'frost' and 'frozen'. The form 'freezing', built by adding the -ing ending, served first as the ordinary present participle of the verb and then hardened into an adjective for anything extremely cold. A spelling point worth holding onto: the long 'ee' sound is written with the double e of 'freeze', and the silent z keeps its place, so the participle simply drops the final e and adds -ing. The same -eze base also explains why 'freeze' is spelled differently from its noun relative 'frost', even though they share a single frosty ancestor.

How the word is built

• freez- (from Old English frēosan: to freeze)
• -ing (present participle / adjectival suffix)