Used to describe an ongoing action or continuous state that was happening at a specific time in the past.
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Later that decade, Avery befriended Rothko and then Gottlieb, and by 1932 all three were summering in Gloucester, spending their mornings sketching or painting the harbor, the wharfs, the sea, the beach and the bathers.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 1, 2026
“They were taken when they were summering on the Attersee,” Ms. Price said, referring to the Salzkammergut region of Austria where Klimt spent summers and painted many of his most famous landscapes.
From New York Times ● Mar. 22, 2012
When the President and Mrs. Coolidge were summering in the Black Hills, Mrs. McKelvie and I were overnight guests at the Summer White House.
From Time Magazine Archive
Sylvie and Miss Barry were summering at the White Mountains.
From Hope Mills or, Between Friend and Sweetheart by Amanda Minnie Douglas
She left her daughter in the Adirondacks where they were summering and descended upon her husband in his New York office to rout him out to meet the girl with her.
From The Innocent Adventuress by Mary Hastings Bradley
