paddling

1. gerundparticiplepresentpresent participle and gerund of paddle

plural paddlings

1. The act of using a paddle.
2. An act of corporal punishment consisting of spanking the buttocks with a paddle.
3. collectiveA group of ducks (mallards, etc.) on the water.

   Behind her trailed twelve more English ships of the line like a paddling of ducklings.

   2018, Gerald Stulc, The Surgion's Mate, Sarasota, Florida: First Edition Design Publishing

   4 more examples

   Having detected, by sound, a fine paddling of ducks feeding in a small bay, the shore of which was skirted by a thick copse, to the shade of the latter I proceeded in my punt.

   1859, Henry Coleman FOLKARD, The Wild-Fowler: a Treatise on Ancient and Modern Wild-Fowling, Historical and Practical, page 233

   —some of the words were caught and torn away on a gust of wind which stirred the osier beds and ruffled among paddlings of ducks

   2010, Margaret Campbell Barnes, Within the Hollow Crown: A Valiant King's Struggle to Save His Country, His Dynasty, and His Love, Sourcebooks, page 33

   His gaze shifted from the paddlings of ducks and rested upon a gentle slope opposite the pond.

   1998, Ge Fei, edited by Jing Wang, China's Avant-Garde Fiction: An Anthology, Duke University Press, Whistling, page 45

   It is by no means unusual in the early part of winter to find paddlings of mallards unaccompanied by ducks.

   1859, Henry Coleman Folkard, The Wild-fowler: A Treatise on Ancient and Modern Wild-fowling, Historical and Practical, page 239