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Showing results for "homing"
  • present participle of home.

homing

American  
[hoh-ming] / ˈhoʊ mɪŋ /

adjective

  1. capable of returning home, usually over a great distance.

    We saw the homing birds at dusk.

  2. guiding or directing homeward or to a destination, especially by mechanical means.

    the homing instinct; a homing beacon.


homing British  
/ ˈhəʊmɪŋ /

noun

  1. zoology relating to the ability to return home after travelling great distances

    homing instinct

  2. (of an aircraft, a missile, etc) capable of guiding itself onto a target or to a specified point

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of homing

First recorded in 1860–65; home + -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 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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