Licking

How to spell licking

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce licking

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does licking mean?

1. verbPassing the tongue over a surface, typically to taste, clean, or moisten it.
2. nounAn informal term for a heavy defeat or a thrashing.

Licking in a sentence

• verb

  The dog kept licking the empty bowl long after dinner.

• noun

  The home team took a real licking in the second half.

• verb

  She was licking the stamp before pressing it onto the envelope.

• noun

  Their candidate gave the incumbent a thorough licking at the polls.

Where does licking come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is the present participle of the verb 'lick', which descends from the Old English liccian, meaning 'to pass the tongue over a surface'. That word grew from a widespread Germanic root, with relatives such as Dutch likken and German lecken, and it ultimately traces back to an ancient root that imitated the action of the tongue and is echoed in the Latin lingere and Greek leikhein, both also meaning 'to lick'. The basic sense of tasting or stroking with the tongue has stayed remarkably stable for over a thousand years. From this came informal extensions: a 'licking' came to mean a thrashing or a heavy defeat, probably from the idea of beating someone soundly. The spelling trap is simply the doubled 'ck' before the suffix, since the short vowel in 'lick' keeps its hard 'k' sound when '-ing' is added.

How the word is built

• lick (Old English liccian: to pass the tongue over)
• -ing (present participle / noun suffix)