Storming

How to spell storming

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce storming

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does storming mean?

1. verbPresent participle of storm: attacking suddenly and forcefully, or moving somewhere in a furious rush.
2. adjectiveInformal British term for something splendid, impressive, or done with great energy.

Storming in a sentence

• verb

  The soldiers were storming the castle gate before dawn.

• adjective

  The band gave a storming performance that had the whole crowd on its feet.

• verb

  She came storming into the meeting, demanding an explanation for the delay.

• adjective

  The home side made a storming comeback in the final ten minutes.

Where does storming come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The base word storm comes straight from Old English storm, a native Germanic word for a violent disturbance of the weather, with close cousins in the Dutch storm and German Sturm. Its deeper root is the Proto-Germanic sturmaz, which carried the sense of turmoil, agitation, or a rushing assault, so the idea of force and onslaught sat inside the word long before it was applied only to weather. From early on English also used storm figuratively for a sudden violent attack, which is why soldiers could storm a fortress as well as clouds gathering to storm overhead. The present participle storming simply adds the regular -ing ending, and because the word never doubles a letter or hides a silent one, it has stayed spelled the way it sounds. In modern British usage storming also picked up an informal sense meaning splendid or impressively forceful, as in a storming performance, an echo of the same energetic, sweeping idea.

How the word is built

• storm (from Old English storm: a violent disturbance of the air)
• -ing (present participle / gerund suffix)