Shedding

How to spell shedding

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce shedding

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does shedding mean?

1. verbCasting off, losing, or letting something fall away, such as fur, leaves, tears, or weight.

Shedding in a sentence

• The dog keeps shedding fur all over the new sofa.

• The oak trees are already shedding their leaves this autumn.

Where does shedding come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is the present participle of the verb 'shed', which descends from the Old English sceadan (also spelled scēadan), a word that meant 'to divide, separate, or part'. That early sense of dividing one thing from another gradually narrowed to the idea of casting something off or letting it fall away, so an animal that loses its winter coat or a tree that lets go of its leaves came to be described as shedding. The same Germanic root lies behind the noun 'watershed', the ridge of land that divides where rainfall flows, preserving the original meaning of separation. English has used the word in its modern sense since the medieval period, and the figurative uses (shedding tears, shedding light, shedding weight) all grew naturally from the core idea of releasing or casting away. The spelling trap is purely mechanical: because 'shed' ends in a single consonant after a single short vowel, that final d is doubled before the -ing ending, giving the double d in shedding.

How the word is built

• shed (Old English sceadan: to separate, cast off)
• -ing (present participle), with the final d doubled because the root has a short vowel in a stressed closed syllable