Rioting

How to spell rioting

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce rioting

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does rioting mean?

1. verbTaking part in a violent public disturbance, or the act of doing so.

Rioting in a sentence

• The crowd kept rioting long after the match had ended.

• Police imposed a curfew to stop people rioting in the city centre.

Where does rioting come from?

Language of origin: French

Riot came into English in the early 1200s from the Old French word riote, which meant a dispute, a quarrel, or general uproar, and the verb rioter, meaning to brawl or quarrel. The further roots are uncertain, though many scholars link it to the Latin rugire, meaning to roar or bellow, which fits the sense of noisy commotion. In its earliest English use a riot could simply mean loud merrymaking or unrestrained behaviour, which survives in phrases like a riot of colour. Over time the legal and political sense of a violent public disturbance took over, and the -ing form names the ongoing act of taking part in such disorder. The spelling trap lies in keeping a single t: because riot ends in a vowel plus an unstressed t, you do not double the consonant before -ing, so it is rioting and never riotting.

How the word is built

• riot (from Old French riote: dispute, uproar)
• -ing (present participle / gerund suffix)