writing

American  

[rahy-ting] / ˈraɪ tɪŋ /

noun

1. the act of a person or thing that writes.

2. written written form.

   to commit one's thoughts to writing.

3. that which is written; written; characters or matter written written with a pen or the like.

   His writing is illegible.

4. such characters or matter with respect to style, kind, quality, etc.

5. an inscription.

6. a letter.

7. any written written or printed paper, as a document or deed.

8. literary or musical style, form, quality, technique, etc..

   Her writing is stilted.

9. a literary composition or production.

10. the profession of a writer.

    He turned to writing at an early age.

11. the Writings, Hagiographa.

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idioms

1. writing on the wall. handwriting.

writing British  

/ ˈraɪtɪŋ /

noun

1. a group of letters or symbols written or marked on a surface as a means of communicating ideas by making each symbol stand for an idea, concept, or thing, by using each symbol to represent a set of sounds grouped into syllables ( syllabic writing ), or by regarding each symbol as corresponding roughly or exactly to each of the sounds in the language ( alphabetic writing ) See also ideogram

2. short for handwriting

3. anything expressed in letters, esp a literary composition

4. the work of a writer

5. literary style, art, or practice

6. written form

   give it to me in writing

7. (modifier) related to or used in writing

   writing ink

8. a sign or signs of approaching disaster

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Other Word Forms

• self-writing adjective
• unwriting adjective

Etymology

Origin of writing

First recorded in 1175–1225; Middle English; write + -ing ¹

Example Sentences

Shear is happy and relieved to see the film finally come to theaters, in part so that he can better focus on writing his next script.

From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 2, 2026

Researchers value the decades of writing by former Mao personal secretary Li Rui for providing a rare insider’s view of relationships and discussions at the top levels of the Chinese Communist Party.

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 1, 2026

In November, we had the first version of the current guideline, against writing new articles with LLMs, which sadly didn’t apply to existing articles, where most of the abuse was.

From Slate • Apr. 1, 2026

"When I've had my braids when I was younger, people would come up to me all the time and ask and I'd be writing the phone numbers down."

From BBC • Apr. 1, 2026

Yes, she had been writing poetry since she was in grade two.

From "Legendary Frybread Drive-In" by Cynthia Leitich Smith

Related Words

• article
• book
• document
• essay
• letter
• literature
• manuscript
• novel
• paper
• piece
• poem
• prose
• publication
• review
• theme
• work