shipping

¹ American  

[ship-ing] / ˈʃɪp ɪŋ /

noun

1. the act or business of a person or thing that ships.

2. a number of ships, especially merchant ships, taken as a whole; tonnage.

3. Obsolete. a voyage.

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shipping ² American  

[ship-ing] / ˈʃɪp ɪŋ /

noun

Slang.

1. the act or practice of discussing, writing about, or hoping for a romantic relationship between fictional characters, as in fan fiction, or between famous people, whether or not the romance actually exists in the book, show, etc., or in real life.

   the shipping of TV characters;

   shipping in webcomics.

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shipping British  

/ ˈʃɪpɪŋ /

noun

1. 1. the business of transporting freight, esp by ship

   2. ( as modifier )

      a shipping magnate

      shipping line

2. 1. ships collectively

      there is a lot of shipping in the Channel

   2. the tonnage of a number of ships

      shipping for this year exceeded that of last

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Usage

What else does shipping mean? Shipping is the act of wanting two or more fictional characters or celebrities to end up in a relationship, usually romantic.

Other Word Forms

• nonshipping adjective

Etymology

Origin of shipping¹

Middle English word dating back to 1250–1300; ship ¹, -ing ¹

Origin of shipping²

First recorded in 1990–95; (relation)ship + -ing ¹

Example Sentences

The price of urea in Egypt, a regional benchmark, jumped 54% over the past month, as the Middle East conflict disrupted shipping.

From The Wall Street Journal

Meanwhile, shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, which usually carries around a fifth of global LNG, has been paralyzed.

From The Wall Street Journal

The market is due to see a rolling supply disruption unfolding “sequentially rather than simultaneously” — moving westward, “dictated by shipping times and buffered unevenly by regional inventories.”

From MarketWatch

With the Red Sea acting as a key link between Europe and Asia, the strait is one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world.

From Barron's

The melt also has geopolitical consequences, as it opens new shipping routes and access to mineral resources.

From Barron's

Related Words

• freight
• ship