- present participle of fast.
fasting
Americannoun
-
fastings
plural
adjective
-
abstaining from eating or drinking, from certain foods or drinks, or from a particular habitual activity for a period.
-
(of a blood sugar test or its result) using or based on blood taken from a person after they have abstained from eating for a prescribed period.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Explanation
Fasting is going for a certain length of time without eating anything. Sometimes fasting is required before you have surgery, like getting your wisdom teeth removed. Often fasting is done for medical or health reasons, or in an attempt to lose weight. For many other people, fasting is an important part of their religious observance. Fasting is done by Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, and Jews, among other groups. Fasting comes from fast, which in turn has an Old English root, fæsten, "voluntary abstinence from food or drink, especially as a religious duty."
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:
"We lived a quiet normal life, fasting for a few days then having a small meal," Shukrani said.
From BBC ● Oct. 19, 2026
Based on the evidence we have, intermittent fasting isn’t superior to calorie counting for weight loss, and many claims about longevity and health optimization are far ahead of existing research evidence.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 16, 2026
And for people with certain medical histories, like having an eating disorder, being pregnant or taking a SGLT2 inhibitor, fasting isn’t a good idea.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 16, 2026
After Wangchuk and others were moved to hospital, Neha continued fasting despite having lost 8kg.
From BBC ● Oct. 9, 2026
And how he does it while fasting on Mondays and Fridays—he’s become more religious—is beyond her.
From "Zeitoun" by Dave Eggers
He wasted his body with fastings and watching.
From Chronicles of the Schonberg-Cotta Family by Elizabeth Rundle Charles
He was greatly exercised in mind, too; and had he been a Roman Catholic priest he would probably have submitted himself to fastings and other penitential exercises.
From The New Mistress A Tale by George Manville Fenn
God stands in no need of any external ceremonies of ours, our watchings, fastings, or cryings, to awaken him, who “neither slumbereth nor sleepeth.”
From True Christianity by Johann Arndt
His prayers and fastings so weakened the body, that frequently for hours and sometimes for days he would lose consciousness, and fall into death-like swoons.
From Glories of Spain by Charles W. (William) Wood
His choice was, to keep secret the names of bewitched actors, the afflictors of the suffering ones, and to strive by prayers, fastings, manipulations, &c., to relieve the unhappy sufferers.
From Witchcraft of New England Explained by Modern Spiritualism by Allen Putnam
Random Word
Spin the wheel and learn a new word!
Get a wordDefinitions 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.
