Gaming

How to spell gaming

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce gaming

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does gaming mean?

1. nounThe activity of playing video or computer games, often as a hobby or competitive pursuit.
2. nounThe business of gambling, especially in casinos and betting establishments.

Gaming in a sentence

• He built a powerful computer specifically for gaming.

• The city licenses every gaming venue along the riverfront.

• Competitive gaming now fills entire stadiums with spectators.

• The new law tightens the rules on commercial gaming and casinos.

Where does gaming come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The word grows from the Old English noun gamen, which meant joy, fun, merriment, or sport, and which also gave us the modern word 'game'. That ancient term sat alongside related forms across the Germanic languages, where it carried the general sense of playful activity or amusement among people. Over the centuries the medial vowel collapsed and gamen became simply 'game', losing its final syllable but keeping its core idea of organised play. The form 'gaming' is the verbal noun, built by adding the productive -ing suffix, and for much of its history it referred chiefly to gambling, since playing games for stakes was the dominant pastime named this way. In the late twentieth century the meaning broadened sharply to cover playing video and computer games, which is now its most common everyday sense. The single 'm' is the spelling trap: because the silent 'e' of 'game' is dropped before -ing, writers sometimes wrongly double the consonant to 'gamming'.

How the word is built

• game (from Old English gamen: amusement, sport)
• -ing (gerund/noun-forming suffix)