Splashing

How to spell splashing

9 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce splashing

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does splashing mean?

1. verbCausing liquid to fly about noisily, or moving through liquid so that it scatters.
2. nounThe sound or action of liquid being scattered or struck.

Splashing in a sentence

• verb

  The children were splashing each other in the shallow end of the pool.

• noun

  The splashing from the burst pipe soaked the kitchen floor.

• verb

  Rain was splashing against the office windows all afternoon.

• noun

  He heard splashing coming from the bathroom and went to check the bath.

Where does splashing come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The word grows from 'splash', which appeared in English in the late 1600s as a more forceful reshaping of the older verb 'plash', meaning to dabble or strike water noisily. Both words are imitative, that is, they were coined to echo the very sound that liquid makes when it is thrown about or struck, with the added 's' at the front giving 'splash' a wetter, heavier feel than its quieter ancestor. There is no foreign root to trace here; this is a homegrown sound-symbolic word, part of a family of English 'sp-' words connected to scattering and spraying. Adding the ordinary present participle ending '-ing' produced 'splashing', describing the continuing action or the noise itself. The spelling is mercifully phonetic, the only thing to watch being the 'sh' digraph in the middle and the single final consonant before the ending.

How the word is built

• splash (imitative root suggesting water striking a surface)
• -ing (present participle / gerund suffix)