Planting

How to spell planting

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce planting

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does planting mean?

1. verbSetting seeds, bulbs, or young plants into the ground so they can grow.
2. nounAn act or season of putting plants in the ground, or an area that has been planted.

Planting in a sentence

• verb

  She spent the weekend planting rows of onions in the allotment.

• noun

  The spring planting of wheat was finished ahead of the rain.

• verb

  The volunteers are planting trees along the riverbank this morning.

• noun

  A young planting of oak now covers the old quarry site.

Where does planting come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The base word plant comes from the Latin planta, which originally meant a young shoot or cutting, and also, curiously, the sole of the foot. The Romans had a verb plantare meaning 'to drive in with the foot', because a gardener would press a cutting into the soil with the heel; the two senses of planta are linked by that gesture. Old English borrowed the noun as plante and developed the verb plantian for setting seeds or shoots into the earth, and after the Norman period French reinforced the word with planter. The form planting simply adds the familiar -ing ending, which English uses both to build the ongoing form of a verb and to name an activity as a noun. Because the spelling is so regular, the only thing to watch is the silent run of letters in the middle: keep the n before the t, and use a single t before -ing rather than doubling it.

How the word is built

• plant (root: to set in the ground)
• -ing (verb/noun suffix)