Marching

How to spell marching

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce marching

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does marching mean?

1. verbWalking with regular, measured steps, especially in a group or in formation.

Marching in a sentence

• The soldiers kept marching in perfect step across the parade ground.

• The protesters were marching peacefully toward the town hall.

Where does marching come from?

Language of origin: French

The base verb 'march' came into English in the 1400s from the Old French 'marcher', which meant 'to walk, tread, or stride'. The French verb is often traced to a Late Latin or Frankish source connected with the idea of marking or trampling the ground with the feet, possibly from the Frankish 'markon', 'to mark out or press with the foot'. From the start it carried the military sense of soldiers moving together in step, and the everyday sense of walking purposefully grew alongside it. The present participle 'marching' simply adds the regular '-ing' ending, and because the root ends in 'ch' the spelling is straightforward with no doubling or dropped letters. The same root also gives us 'march' in the sense of a steady piece of music written to accompany troops on the move.

How the word is built

• march (to walk with regular steps)
• -ing (present participle/gerund suffix)