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

As a young woman in the 1920s, she disguised herself as a man and worked on a local archaeological dig at the Roman Villa Casale until she was ratted out and sent packing.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 21, 2026

“It reminded me of the old days when I worked in the packing department,” she said, recalling her job at Springs.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 20, 2026

When she saw the fire she knew to leave, packing as much as she could before making a run for it.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 14, 2026

I knew I needed to downsize before I started packing, so I began by identifying unwanted belongings to sell.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 11, 2026

The men had to sit awkwardly on crates and packing cases in order to dig their oars into the water at the proper angle.

From "Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World" by Jennifer Armstrong

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

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

From Scientific American ● Oct. 25, 2017

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

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

Another application from the missile field, which shows real possibilities, is a reliable flow meter that has no packings or bearings.

From The Practical Values of Space Exploration Report of the Committee on Science and Astronautics, U.S. House of Representatives, Eighty-Sixth Congress, Second Session by United States. Congress. House. Committee on Science and Astronautics.

Related Words

• Styrofoam