Netting

How to spell netting

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce netting

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does netting mean?

1. nounAn open meshed fabric of knotted or woven cord, wire, or thread.
2. verbThe act of catching something in a net, or of earning an amount as clear profit.

Netting in a sentence

• noun

  The gardener draped fine netting over the strawberries to keep birds away.

• verb

  The crew spent the morning netting herring off the cold coast.

• noun

  The contractor stretched orange safety netting around the open trench.

• verb

  After expenses, the stall was netting a steady profit each weekend.

Where does netting come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The base word 'net' descends from Old English 'net' (also spelled 'nett'), a native Germanic term for a meshed fabric of knotted cord used to trap fish or birds; it has close relatives in Old Norse 'net' and Dutch and German 'Netz'. The deep root carried the sense of something knotted or bound together, which fits the woven, looped construction of a net perfectly. The form 'netting' arose later as English added the productive '-ing' ending, first to name the action of catching with a net and then, more durably, to name the mesh material itself. The spelling trap is purely mechanical: because 'net' ends in a single short vowel plus a single consonant, that final 't' must double before '-ing', giving 'netting' rather than the wrong 'neting'. The same doubling rule governs everyday relatives such as 'betting', 'setting', and 'fitting'.

How the word is built

• net (mesh, root)
• -t- (doubled consonant after short vowel)
• -ing (suffix)