peaking

1. gerundparticiplepresentpresent participle and gerund of peak

plural peakings

1. The act of something reaching a peak.

   The peaking of each of these hormone levels may occur at different times.

2. The act of something operating when something else is at a peak.
   1. The act of generating extra electricity while demand for it is at a peak (e.g., at certain times of day, in very hot weather, in very cold weather).

      Currently their best stopgap for peaking in this region is a vast fleet of small diesel gensets, which many residents are furious about.

      1 more example

      It doesn’t seem likely that we’ll see many more of these coal-to-gas conversions. For one, there are just a lot fewer coal plants in the US than there used to be: we’re down to just over 200 from a peak of nearly 600. The most obvious candidates for conversion — smaller, older plants that might be useful for peaking — have probably already been converted. And as grid-scale batteries change the economic logic of peaking, even new gas plants are looking less attractive than they used to; I can only imagine that a less-efficient converted coal plant is even less compelling.

      2026 June 19, Brian Potter, “Converting Coal Plants to Natural Gas”, in Construction Physics [Substack newsletter], archived from the original on 19 Jun 2026

comparative more peaking · superlative most peaking

1. peaky; sickly; pining