siding
Americannoun
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sidings
plural
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a short railroad track, opening onto a main track at one or both ends, on which one of two meeting trains is switched until the other has passed.
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any of several varieties of weatherproof facing for frame buildings, composed of pieces attached separately as shingles, plain or shaped boards, or of various units of sheet metal or various types of composition materials.
noun
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a short stretch of railway track connected to a main line, used for storing rolling stock or to enable trains on the same line to pass
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a short railway line giving access to the main line for freight from a factory, mine, quarry, etc
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material attached to the outside of a building to make it weatherproof
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of siding
Explanation
Siding is what a home builder covers the outside walls of a house with. Some houses have old aluminum siding or newer vinyl siding. Older houses that haven't had new siding applied are likely to have some type of wooden siding, like shingles or clapboards, unless they're made out of brick or stone. It's less expensive to maintain a house with plastic, or vinyl, siding because it doesn't have to be painted every few years. A completely different kind of siding is a track that runs beside the main train tracks, used for storing train cars or allowing one train to pass another.
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 team revived original furnishings and interior and exterior walls, while constructing a new ADA-compliant Victorian carpenter gothic cottage with stylish board and batten siding, modeled after a 19th-century Sears kit house.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 6, 2026
But in siding with those officials, Schiltz saw an ulterior motive.
From Slate ● Jun. 22, 2026
At 2,350 square feet with fire-resistant siding, it sits on the same plot where the Eaton Fire destroyed their home of 10 years in January 2025.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 20, 2026
District Judge Troy Nunley issued a preliminary injunction on Friday that blocks the companies from integrating their operations, siding with DirecTV and a coalition of eight states that sued to stop the deal.
From Barron's ● Apr. 18, 2026
Our tavern was finished with shingles, but some of the richer people, like Mr. Heron, had white clapboard siding on their houses.
From "My Brother Sam is Dead" by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
Trains pulled in every 15 or 20 minutes, as many as the endlessly enterprising operators of Ukraine's railway network could find in the sidings and marshalling yards.
From BBC ● Feb. 24, 2026
Nevertheless, the tracks are still live with empty trains on the Jubilee line occasionally having to pull into the sidings towards Charing Cross to regulate the service.
From BBC ● Aug. 2, 2023
Unlike the O.J. moment, there were also no multitudes drawn to the overpasses and sidings to cheer for their hero.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 3, 2023
If I’ve got mile-long sidings and three-mile-long trains that can’t get out of the way, I need longer sidings so there’s more room to get out of the way.
From Washington Post ● Jun. 25, 2022
Another thing it did was stop on sidings near prisons, leaving a few cars there.
From "Slaughterhouse-Five" by Kurt Vonnegut
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.
