Rocking

How to spell rocking

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce rocking

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does rocking mean?

1. verbMoving gently and repeatedly back and forth or from side to side.
2. adjectiveDesigned to tilt or sway gently on curved supports, as a chair or horse.

Rocking in a sentence

• verb

  The boat kept rocking as the waves grew higher.

• adjective

  Grandma bought a wooden rocking chair for the nursery.

• verb

  She sat rocking the baby until he fell asleep.

• adjective

  The antique rocking horse stood in the corner of the playroom.

Where does rocking come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The base verb 'rock' comes from the Old English roccian, meaning 'to move a child gently to and fro', a soothing motion familiar from cradles. This is a native Germanic word, related to forms in Old High German and other West Germanic languages that described swaying or rolling movement. The present participle 'rocking' grew naturally by adding the verbal suffix -ing, and over the centuries it served both as a verb (the chair was rocking) and as a describing word (a rocking chair). Quite separately, the noun 'rock' meaning stone has a different Latin-derived history, so the swaying 'rock' should not be confused with it. In the twentieth century the musical 'rock' sense and the slang use of 'rocking' to mean 'excellent' both branched off from the same idea of energetic back-and-forth movement.

How the word is built

• rock (to sway to and fro, from Old English roccian)
• -ing (present participle / adjective suffix)