Packing

How to spell packing

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce packing

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does packing mean?

1. nounThe act of putting belongings or goods into containers for storage or transport.
2. nounMaterial used to fill a gap or to make a joint watertight, such as around a valve or pipe.

Packing in a sentence

• The night before the holiday was spent on packing and labelling the suitcases.

• The plumber replaced the worn packing around the tap to stop the drip.

• Careful packing kept the fragile glasses safe during the long move.

• Fresh packing in the pump gland kept the seal pressure-tight.

Where does packing come from?

Language of origin: Dutch

This word grows from the noun and verb 'pack', which entered English in the 1200s from the trading languages of the Low Countries, probably Middle Dutch or Middle Low German 'pak', meaning a bundle of goods tied up for transport. Medieval cloth merchants used such bundles constantly, and the word travelled across northern Europe alongside the wool and textile trade, which is why it has cousins in German 'Pack' and Old French 'pacque'. From the physical bundle came the verb 'to pack', meaning to gather things tightly together, and adding the ordinary suffix '-ing' produced 'packing', covering both the action of stowing goods and the material stuffed in to fill or seal a space. The double consonant trap in 'packing' is gentle: the base 'pack' already ends in 'ck', so you simply add '-ing' without doubling anything further. The same root also sits behind 'package' and 'packet', both built on that idea of the tidy bundle.

How the word is built

• pack (a bundle, to bundle)
• -ing (verb/noun suffix)