Kissing

How to spell kissing

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce kissing

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does kissing mean?

1. verbTouching someone or something with the lips as a sign of affection or greeting.

Kissing in a sentence

• The couple were kissing in the doorway when the taxi arrived.

• Kissing the baby goodnight became part of their evening routine.

Where does kissing come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word grows from the Old English verb cyssan, meaning 'to touch or caress with the lips', which itself descends from a Proto-Germanic root kussjan. Relatives survive across the Germanic family, including Dutch kussen and German küssen, and many scholars suspect the root began life as an imitative word, echoing the soft sound of the act itself. The present participle and gerund form 'kissing' was created by attaching the productive English suffix -ing, which turns a verb into an ongoing action or a noun naming that action. The spelling trap is purely mechanical: because the base verb ends in a single short vowel followed by a consonant, the consonant is not doubled (it is already double in 'kiss'), so writers simply add -ing to give 'kissing'. The everyday familiarity of the word keeps it well within the comfort zone of fluent adult spellers.

How the word is built

• kiss (from Old English cyssan: to touch with the lips)
• -ing (present participle / gerund suffix)