Moving

How to spell moving

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce moving

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does moving mean?

1. adjectiveChanging position or in the process of relocation.
2. adjectiveStirring deep feelings, especially sadness or sympathy.

Moving in a sentence

• The moving van was parked outside the flat all morning.

• The film's final scene was so moving that the audience sat in silence.

• A moving target is harder to photograph clearly.

• She wrote a moving tribute to her late mentor.

Where does moving come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word is the present participle of 'move', which English took from the Anglo-French and Old French verb 'mover' or 'moveir', itself descended from the Latin 'movere', meaning 'to set in motion, to stir, to shift'. The same Latin root gave English a whole family of relatives, including 'motion', 'motor', 'remove', and 'emotion', the last of which literally meant a 'moving out' of feeling. The verb entered English in the 1200s in the plain physical sense of changing position, and by the late 1300s the figurative sense of stirring someone's feelings was already in use, so that something 'moving' could shift either an object or a heart. The spelling drops the silent final 'e' of 'move' before adding '-ing', a regular English rule, which is the small trap worth remembering. The double sense of physical motion and emotional impact has travelled together for centuries.

How the word is built

• mov- (from movere: to move)
• -ing (present participle / adjective suffix)