- present participle of part.
parting
Americannoun
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partings
plural
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the act of a person or thing that parts.
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a division or separation.
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a place of division or separation.
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a departure or leave-taking.
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something that serves to part or separate things.
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Mineralogy. a fracture of a crystal along a plane determined by twinning or pressure rather than along a cleavage plane.
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Metallurgy. parting line.
adjective
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given, happening, taken, done, etc., at parting.
a parting glance.
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of or relating to parting, leave-taking, departure, or death.
parting words.
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ending or taking leave.
the parting day.
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dividing or separating.
noun
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US, Canadian, and Austral equivalent: part. the line of scalp showing when sections of hair are combed in opposite directions
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the act of separating or the state of being separated
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a departure or leave-taking, esp one causing a final separation
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( as modifier )
a parting embrace
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a place or line of separation or division
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chem a division of a crystal along a plane that is not a cleavage plane
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a euphemism for death
adjective
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literary departing
the parting day
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serving to divide or separate
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of parting
1250–1300; Middle English partyng (gerund). See part, -ing 1, -ing 2
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The movie ends with Hana and Kip parting because his job takes him to other areas of the country.
From Salon ● Jul. 28, 2026
Given his past behavior, he sounds like the type of guy to leave a curveball in his will, as a parting shot.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 6, 2026
When Tracy was let go at the end of the season, the team called it a “mutual parting of ways.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 1, 2026
As the volunteers make their way down stream, gently parting the riverside vegetation looking for signs of water voles, frequent finds are shouted back to Reeves.
From BBC ● Jun. 30, 2026
Though we had known them so short a while there was melancholy in the parting.
From "Nectar in a Sieve" by Kamala Markandaya
I now hope that cross-species friendships of such intensity do not end in permanent partings.
From Washington Post ● Jul. 4, 2022
In what has to be one of the most inevitable partings of the Premier League era, Steve Bruce lasted just 13 days after the Saudi Arabian-backed £305m takeover of the club.
From BBC ● Oct. 20, 2021
Wide-leg trousers, berets, high necklines and centre partings.
From The Guardian ● Aug. 8, 2019
Its story, held between the arbitrary-seeming brackets of electoral victory and pop-star overdose, is inchoate, and beguilingly so: a series of meetings and partings, a fluctuation of perceptions, emotions, and desires.
From The New Yorker ● Sep. 24, 2018
Our lives are composed of meetings and partings, with brief, bright acquaintances in-between.
From "The Name of the Wind" by Patrick Rothfuss
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
