Patrolling

How to spell patrolling

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce patrolling

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does patrolling mean?

1. verbMoving regularly through an area on guard, to keep watch over it or maintain security.

Patrolling in a sentence

• Two officers were patrolling the shopping centre after the recent break-ins.

• The security firm charges extra for patrolling the warehouse at night.

Where does patrolling come from?

Language of origin: French

This word descends from the French verb patrouiller, which in the 1500s meant something close to 'to paddle about in mud' or 'to tramp through dirty water'. That verb grew out of patte, the French word for a paw or foot, so the earliest sense pictured soldiers slogging on foot through muck rather than the orderly modern image of a guard walking a beat. English took up the noun and verb 'patrol' in the seventeenth century, largely through military use, and the meaning quickly cleaned up to mean moving regularly through an area to keep watch over it. The present participle 'patrolling' doubles the final l because the stress falls on the second syllable (pa-TROL), the same rule that gives us 'controlling' and 'compelling', and that doubled l is the main thing writers need to remember. The muddy origin is a useful memory hook: the word literally began with feet trudging through the wet.

How the word is built

• patrol (from French patrouiller: to tramp about)
• -ling (doubled final consonant of patrol
• -ing, present participle)