Rushing

How to spell rushing

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce rushing

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does rushing mean?

1. verbMoving or acting with great and often hasty speed.

Rushing in a sentence

• Commuters were rushing across the platform to catch the last train.

• She regretted rushing the report and sending it before checking the figures.

Where does rushing come from?

Language of origin: French

This is the present participle of the verb 'rush', which entered English in the late 1300s from Anglo-French 'russher', a variant of Old French 'reusser' or 'ruser' meaning 'to drive back' or 'to repel'. Those forms trace back to the Latin 'recusare', 'to refuse or reject', built from 're-' ('back') and 'causari' ('to plead a cause'). Over time the violent sense of driving something back softened into the idea of moving suddenly and forcefully, and by the 1500s 'rush' chiefly meant to hurry or surge ahead. The spelling is reliably phonetic, so the only real care point is remembering the single 's', a 'sh' sound spelled 'sh', and the doubling rule that keeps just one consonant before '-ing' since 'rush' already ends in 'sh'.

How the word is built

• rush (to move with urgent speed)
• -ing (present participle/gerund suffix)