clinging
verb
Form of cling , present participle of cling.
Simple meaning
Hold on tightly or tenaciously.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
klingingSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈklɪŋɪŋ
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
verb
present participle of cling
Hold on tightly or tenaciously
present participle of cling
To hold very tightly, as to not fall off.
present participle of cling
To adhere to an object, without being affixed, in such a way as to follow its contours. Used especially of fabrics and films.
present participle of cling
To cause to adhere to, especially by twining round or embracing.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Hold on tightly or tenaciously
Used this way, clinging is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.