Trending

How to spell trending

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce trending

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does trending mean?

1. adjectiveCurrently very popular or widely discussed, especially online.
2. verbMoving or developing in a general direction over time, as with prices or data.

Trending in a sentence

• adjective

  The marketing team tracked every trending topic on social media.

• verb

  House prices have been trending upward across the region.

• adjective

  Her recipe video became a trending sensation within hours.

• verb

  The chart showed unemployment trending slowly downward.

Where does trending come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word traces back to the Old English verb trendan, which meant 'to turn, roll, or revolve', and which belonged to the same Germanic family as the words 'trundle' and 'trindle'. For centuries the sense stayed close to physical turning and bending, so a river or a path could 'trend' in a particular direction. By the 1800s the figurative meaning had taken hold: a trend was a general direction in which something inclined or developed, as in prices or fashion. The participle 'trending' described that movement, especially in statistics and economics where a line on a chart trends upward or downward. In the social media era the word was revived to mean a topic that is rapidly gaining popularity, and because it is simply 'trend' plus the regular '-ing' ending, the spelling holds no surprises beyond keeping the single 'd'.

How the word is built

• trend (to turn, incline)
• -ing (present participle / adjective suffix)