- present participle of home.
homing
Americanadjective
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capable of returning home, usually over a great distance.
We saw the homing birds at dusk.
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guiding or directing homeward or to a destination, especially by mechanical means.
the homing instinct; a homing beacon.
noun
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zoology relating to the ability to return home after travelling great distances
homing instinct
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(of an aircraft, a missile, etc) capable of guiding itself onto a target or to a specified point
Etymology
Origin of homing
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.
The 19-year-old Italian let the race settle down before remorselessly homing in on the Ferrari and blasting past Hamilton on the Hangar Straight on lap eight after strategically saving his battery charge.
From BBC ● Jul. 4, 2026
“Buyers from around the country — especially Texas, Vegas, Arizona and L.A. — are homing in on Orange County.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 24, 2026
Researchers are homing in on every part of the construction process, from the emissions produced by cement mixing to the impact of shipping materials to a job site—for example, steel beams coming from Pennsylvania.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 8, 2026
But homing in on the annoying and self-defeating aspects of it misses the real story of how the movement changed American society, and the world, for the better—and how Lindy West did too.
From Slate ● Mar. 31, 2026
Creatures that have neither clocks nor books are alive to all manner of knowledge about time and the weather; and about direction, too, as we know from their extraordinary migratory and homing journeys.
From "Watership Down: A Novel" by Richard Adams
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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.