Stroking

How to spell stroking

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce stroking

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does stroking mean?

1. verbMoving a hand or fingers gently and repeatedly along a surface, often to soothe.
2. verbPraising or flattering someone, especially to keep them content or cooperative.

Stroking in a sentence

• She calmed the nervous cat by stroking its back slowly.

• The manager kept stroking the client's ego throughout the long meeting.

• He sat stroking his beard while he considered the offer.

• She was tired of stroking her boss just to get her ideas approved.

Where does stroking come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word grows from the verb 'stroke', which descends from the Old English strācian, meaning 'to pass the hand gently over a surface'. That verb belongs to a tight family of Germanic words built on a root suggesting a long, smooth movement, and it is closely related to 'strike', which originally carried the milder sense of 'to stroke or rub' before it hardened into the modern idea of hitting. Over the centuries the gentle, soothing meaning stayed attached to 'stroke', while the forceful meaning split off into 'strike'. The present participle 'stroking' simply adds the ordinary -ing ending, and the single 'k' before it is worth remembering: there is no doubling, because the long vowel in 'stroke' keeps the consonant single. By the time of Middle English the word was firmly established for the act of running a hand along fur, hair, or any smooth surface, and that everyday sense is the one we still use.

How the word is built

• strok- (from Old English strācian: to stroke, pass the hand over)
• -ing (present participle / gerund suffix)