present-participial

A form of present participial — Of or relating to the present participle.

Meanings

adjectivepresent-participial (not comparable)
  1. alternativenot comparableAlternative form of present participial.

    The absurdity of their situation is caught from Sisko’s point of view in a typical Leonard present-participial sentence: “Riding in the trunk of a car with an escaped convict, chatting, passing the time, the car bumping over back roads, the floor beneath them hard, ungiving.”

    1996 August 15, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, “Two Tough Guys on Familiar Ground”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 20 Apr 2022
    3 more examples

    Noticin that you sometimes print letters and comments on the subject of improvin the American language, permit me to announce (hopin that the sympathizin will aid in promotin) the project of dispensin with the nasal “ng” sound when pronouncin the present-participial affix “ing,” and correspondinly dispensin with the letter “g” when spellin it.

    1922 January 21, Jacob Backes, “[Voice of the People] Is the “NG” N. G.!”, in Chicago Daily Tribune, volume LXXXI, number 18, Chicago, Ill., page 6, column 7

    [D]id you know […] that “restaurant” until about 1760 wasn’t a noun but a present-participial adjective meaning only fortifying or restorative, and “applied to certain bouillons and eggnogs consumed to restore one’s strength after an illness or great physical exertion”?

    1982 November 18, Geoffrey Grigson, “Slow Food”, in The New York Review of Books, New York, N.Y., archived from the original on 10 May 2021

    Present-Participial Danglers. In the sentences that follow, mispositioned words have caused grammatical blunders. The classic example occurs when the wrong noun begins the main clause, that is, a noun other than the one expected by the reader after digesting the introductory participial phrase.

    1998, Bryan A[ndrew] Garner, “Danglers”, in A Dictionary of Modern American Usage, New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, Inc., →ISBN, page 183, column 1
Cite this entry
APA

present-participial. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/present-participial

MLA

“present-participial.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/present-participial. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “present-participial,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/present-participial.

Source: present-participial on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.