processing
noun
Simple meaning
Preparing or putting through a prescribed procedure.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
prahsuhsingSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈpɹɑsɛsɪŋ
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.
noun
Preparing or putting through a prescribed procedure
“The processing of newly arrived immigrants.”
The act of taking something through a set of prescribed procedures.
computing
The act of retrieving, storing, classifying, manipulating, transmitting etc. data, especially via computer techniques.
The action of the verb to process.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A2 · Elementary
- Frequency
- Very Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Preparing or putting through a prescribed procedure
Used this way, processing is a common word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
“The processing of newly arrived immigrants.”
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Usage note
It most often appears in the pattern “processing of …”, which is worth copying when you use it.
Natural pattern: processing of …
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use processing
- “The processing of newly arrived immigrants.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
A particular course of action intended to achieve a result.
Word family
Words built from the same root.
A business engaged in processing agricultural products and preparing them for market.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
The time it takes to complete a prescribed procedure.
A system of one or more computers and associated software with common storage.
The execution of low priority programs while higher priority programs are not using the processing system.
The serial execution of computer programs.
Data processing in accounting or business management.
The part of a computer (a microprocessor chip) that does most of the data processing.
Related words
Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.
Freed from impurities by processing.
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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.