Touring

How to spell touring

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce touring

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does touring mean?

1. verbTravelling from place to place, often for pleasure or as part of a performing or sporting schedule.
2. adjectiveDesigned or intended for long-distance travel, or relating to a travelling company or production.

Touring in a sentence

• verb

  The band spent the whole summer touring across Europe.

• adjective

  He bought a heavy touring bike built for crossing the country.

• verb

  They are touring the wine region by bicycle next month.

• adjective

  A touring company brought the play to provincial theatres.

Where does touring come from?

Language of origin: French

This word is the present participle of the verb 'tour', which English took from the Old French 'tourn' or 'tour', meaning a turn, a circuit, or a journey that comes back round to its starting point. That French noun descended from the Latin 'tornus', a lathe or the tool used to scribe a circle, which itself was borrowed from the Greek 'tornos', meaning a carpenter's compass or turning instrument. The underlying idea in every layer is rotation or going round, which is why a 'tour' is a circular trip rather than a one-way trip. English adopted 'tour' as a noun in the late 1300s and began using it as a verb, with the '-ing' form 'touring', from around the 1600s onward. The same circling root survives in 'turn', 'tournament', and 'detour', and remembering that 'touring' keeps the full 'tour' intact helps avoid dropping the silent-feeling 'u'.

How the word is built

• tour (a journey round)
• -ing (present participle / verbal noun suffix)