packing

American  

[pak-ing] / ˈpæk ɪŋ /

noun

• packings
  plural

1. the act or work of a person or thing that packs.

2. the preparation and packaging of foodstuffs, especially to be sold at wholesale.

3. the way in which something is packed.

4. an act or instance of transporting supplies, goods, etc., on the backs of horses, mules, or persons.

5. material used to cushion or protect goods packed in a container.

6. material, often in the form of a grease-impregnated fibrous ring, compressed inside a stuffing box or the like to prevent leakage around the moving shaft of an engine, pump, or valve.

7. Printing. rubber, paper, or other material fastened to the tympan or cylinder of a press to provide pressure to produce a printed impression.

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packing British  

/ ˈpækɪŋ /

noun

1. 1. material used to cushion packed goods

   2. ( as modifier )

      a packing needle

2. the packaging of foodstuffs

3. med

   1. the application of a medical pack

   2. gauze or other absorbent material for packing a wound

4. printing sheets of material, esp paper, used to cover the platen or impression cylinder of a letterpress machine

5. any substance or material used to make watertight or gastight joints, esp in a stuffing box

6. engineering pieces of material of various thicknesses used to adjust the position of a component or machine before it is secured in its correct position or alignment

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Usage

What is packing? Packing is the act of grouping items into a container, especially for storing or moving the items. Packing can also describe the container or wrapping itself used to pack items. Example: The packing on this Christmas gift is too hard to get off!

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• underpacking
  noun

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• packings
  plural

Etymology

Origin of packing

1350–1400; Middle English pakking (gerund). See pack ¹, -ing ¹

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

packing packings

Furious residents packing city-council meetings have become a familiar scene as proposals for data centers spark backlash in towns across America.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 7, 2026

Chinatown librarian Lynn Nguyen leads a group of teens in packing and delivering a variety of fresh produce and food to people in need throughout Chinatown.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 4, 2026

Lee then focused on graduating early, packing his remaining coursework into two dense semesters — taking seven classes during one of them.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 4, 2026

It brings vegetal sweetness, salt, smoke and nubby creaminess without requiring anyone to roast and peel peppers before packing the cooler.

From Salon ● Jul. 30, 2026

Then we get back to work on the spare room and Bubbe’s bedroom: moving clothes, packing up boxes, tidying and sorting the house till it looks as close to presentable as it’s going to get.

From "Code Name Kingfisher" by Liz Kessler

In geometry, he made key discoveries in the study of symmetries, sphere packings, lattices, polyhedra and tilings, including properties of quasi-periodic tilings as developed by Roger Penrose.

From Nature ● May 22, 2020

His archives contain all sorts of investigations of possible packings and their properties, together with actual cardboard polyhedra, still ready to assemble:

From Scientific American ● Oct. 25, 2017

Hexagonal arrangements of cells are like closest geometrical packings of disks.

From Scientific American ● Oct. 25, 2017

After making physical models of tetrahedrons and demonstrating the packing patterns, she convinced Dr. Lagarias that her packings were as dense as she had said they were, and finally published her findings a year ago.

From New York Times ● Jan. 5, 2010

No old preparation for battle, no old packings to break into the unknown dark, had ever given him quite such a sense of the high, free airs where romance blows.

From The House of Mystery An Episode in the Career of Rosalie Le Grange, Clairvoyant by Will Irwin

Related Words

• Styrofoam