Strolling

How to spell strolling

9 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce strolling

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does strolling mean?

1. verbWalking in a slow, relaxed, and unhurried manner.

Strolling in a sentence

• The couple were strolling along the seafront after dinner.

• She spent the warm afternoon strolling through the old market.

Where does strolling come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The base verb 'stroll' appeared in English in the mid-1600s, most likely borrowed from a dialectal German word 'strollen' (also 'strolchen'), meaning to wander, rove, or ramble about. That German verb is connected to 'Strolch', a noun for a vagabond, tramp, or wandering fortune-teller, and some scholars trace it further back to the Italian 'astrologo', an astrologer, since travelling soothsayers once roamed from town to town. Over time the rough sense of aimless vagrancy softened into the pleasant, unhurried 'leisurely walk' meaning we use today. The present participle 'strolling' simply adds '-ing' to 'stroll', and because the verb ends in a single vowel followed by a single consonant after a stressed syllable, the final 'l' is doubled before the suffix, which is exactly the spelling point worth remembering.

How the word is built

• stroll (to walk leisurely)
• -ing (present participle/gerund suffix)