Talking

How to spell talking

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce talking

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does talking mean?

1. verbSpeaking or conversing; expressing thoughts aloud in words.
2. adjectiveAble to produce speech or speech-like sounds, as a device or animal.

Talking in a sentence

• verb

  The two managers were talking quietly in the corridor.

• adjective

  The children were delighted by the talking parrot at the pet shop.

• verb

  She kept talking on the phone long after the meeting ended.

• adjective

  The museum installed a talking display that narrated the exhibit.

Where does talking come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The base word 'talk' comes from Middle English 'talken', which appears around the 1200s and is generally understood as a frequentative form related to 'tale' and 'tell', both rooted in the Old English 'talu' meaning 'a story, a reckoning, or speech'. The underlying sense was the act of recounting or putting things into words, which broadened naturally into ordinary conversation. The whole family belongs to the Germanic layer of English, sharing ancestry with words for narration and counting (a tally and a tale were once close cousins). The '-ing' ending is the native English suffix that turns a verb into its ongoing participle or into a noun naming the activity. The spelling keeps the silent 'l' of 'talk', the same quiet letter found in 'walk' and 'chalk', and that hidden 'l' is the only real trap in writing the word.

How the word is built

• talk (root: to speak)
• -ing (present participle / gerund suffix)