hoarding

plural hoardings

1. historicalarchitectureA roofed wooden shield placed over the battlements of a castle and projecting from them.
2. AustraliaCanadaHong KongIrelandNew ZealandUKbusinessA temporary fence-like structure built around building work to add security and prevent accidents to the public.

   The west side is one massive building site, although it's hard to appreciate what's going on behind all the hoardings.

   2022 November 16, Paul Bigland, “From rural branches to high-speed arteries”, in RAIL, number 970, page 57

   3 more examples

   Making inquiries she came to a hoarding, within which were excavations denoting the foundations of a building; and on the boards without one or two large posters announcing that the foundation-stone of the chapel about to be erected would be laid that afternoon at three o’clock by a London preacher of great popularity among his body.

   1894 December – 1895 November, Thomas Hardy, chapter VIII, in Jude the Obscure, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], published 1896, →OCLC

   A hoarding is a legal requirement for the safety of the public on a building site. There are rules about its height and construction. But of course it is also the perfect opportunity: a blank canvas on which to show a vision of the life soon to be lived behind it.

   2014 September 25, Hugo Macdonald, “Could those utopian hoardings for new developments get any more nauseating?”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

   They’re a familiar sight to many: the eye-roll-inducing, over-the-top development hoardings and adverts that celebrate the (inevitably luxury and, to most people, unaffordable) developments soon to be added to the city skyline.

   2015 October 2, Francesca Perry, “What are the most ridiculous property development adverts you've seen?”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

3. CommonwealthIrelandUKA billboard.

   Another misty bus-queue morning / Faces smile down from a hoarding / Stoop to the bin, drop something in

   1982, Thomas Dolby, “Leipzig”, in The Golden Age of Wireless

   3 more examples

   Nobody has ever seen Big Brother. He is a face on the hoardings, a voice on the telescreen. We may be reasonably sure that he will never die, and there is already considerable uncertainty as to when he was born.

   1949 June 8, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], Nineteen Eighty-Four: A Novel, London: Secker & Warburg, →OCLC; republished [Australia]: Project Gutenberg of Australia, August 2001

   Today, by radio, and also on giant hoardings, a rabbi, an admiral notorious for his links to Masonry, a trio of cardinals, a trio, too, of insignificant politicians (bought and paid for by a rich and corrupt Anglo-Canadian banking corporation), inform us all of how our country now risks dying of starvation.

   1994, Georges Perec, translated by Gilbert Adair, A Void, London: Harvill Press, page vii

   But holidaymakers arriving this weekend in Positano, on the Amalfi coast, are more likely to find their gaze captured by a vast Volkswagen Golf. The car, pictured on a giant hoarding, has launched the latest row over intrusive advertising in Italy's historic towns and cities.

   2004 June 25, John Hooper, “Uproar in Italy over hoardings in historic vistas”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

plural hoardings

1. countableuncountableThe practice of accumulating goods.

   But that doesn’t solve harder questions about the hoarding of vaccines, raw materials and patent rights in the west, or the fact that Covax clearly isn’t working as fast as it should.

   2021 April 26, Gaby Hinsliff, “Vaccine hoarding is all the more disturbing as a Covid disaster unfolds in India”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

2. countableA good which is hoarded.
3. countableuncountablehuman sciencesAn anxiety disorder characterized by a compulsive need to accumulate goods and feelings of anxiety or discomfort about discarding such goods.

   Hoarding can be distressing and dangerous. But it’s not just a matter of ‘too much stuff’ – it’s a complex condition that requires careful, targeted help[.]

   2023 July 4, Samira Shackle, “‘You reach a point where you can’t live your life’: what is behind extreme hoarding?”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

   Synonyms: compulsive hoarding, hoarding disorder

1. gerundparticiplepresentpresent participle and gerund of hoard