Neighboring

How to spell neighboring

11 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce neighboring

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does neighboring mean?

1. adjectiveSituated next to or very near a particular place; adjacent or bordering.

Neighboring in a sentence

• The fire spread quickly to the neighboring buildings on the same block.

• Residents from the neighboring town drove over for the weekend market.

Where does neighboring come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word goes back to the Old English neahgebur, a compound of neah meaning 'near' and gebur meaning 'dweller' or 'farmer', so a neighbor was quite literally the person who dwelt nearby. The same gebur element survives in the old word 'boor', which once simply meant a peasant or rustic farmer before it took on its rude modern sense. Over the centuries the spelling shifted and the silent 'gh' settled in, reflecting a throaty sound that English speakers stopped pronouncing long ago, which is the main reason the word is a spelling trap today. The verb 'to neighbor', meaning to lie close to or border on something, grew naturally out of the noun, and 'neighboring' is its present participle used as an adjective. This American spelling drops the 'u' that British and Canadian writers keep in 'neighbouring', following Noah Webster's nineteenth-century reforms that trimmed many -our endings to -or.

How the word is built

• neigh- (from Old English neah: near)
• -bor (from gebur: dweller, farmer)
• -ing (adjective/participle suffix)

British and American spelling

Neighboring is the American spelling. British English spells it neighbouring.