| Library / English Dictionary |
RAILING
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
A barrier consisting of a horizontal bar and supports
Synonyms:
rail; railing
Classified under:
Nouns denoting man-made objects
Hypernyms ("railing" is a kind of...):
barrier (a structure or object that impedes free movement)
Meronyms (parts of "railing"):
ledger board (top rail of a fence or balustrade)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "railing"):
bar ((law) a railing that encloses the part of the courtroom where the judges and lawyers sit and the case is tried)
fife rail (the railing surrounding the mast of a sailing vessel)
guardrail; safety rail (a railing placed alongside a stairway or road for safety)
taffrail (the railing around the stern of a ship)
Holonyms ("railing" is a part of...):
balusters; balustrade; banister; bannister; handrail (a railing at the side of a staircase or balcony to prevent people from falling)
Derivation:
rail (separate with a railing)
rail (provide with rails)
rail (enclose with rails)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Material for making rails or rails collectively
Classified under:
Nouns denoting man-made objects
Hypernyms ("railing" is a kind of...):
material (things needed for doing or making something)
II. (verb)
Sense 1
-ing form of the verb rail
Context examples:
He said, that being then not very well with the court, and pressed by many of his friends, he complied with the proposal; and after employing a hundred men for two years, the work miscarried, the projectors went off, laying the blame entirely upon him, railing at him ever since, and putting others upon the same experiment, with equal assurance of success, as well as equal disappointment.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
I proceeded: at last my way opened, the trees thinned a little; presently I beheld a railing, then the house—scarce, by this dim light, distinguishable from the trees; so dank and green were its decaying walls.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
As we drove up, we found the railings in front of the house lined by a curious crowd.
(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
When I called on Wednesday there was a letter with the West Kensington postmark upon it, and my name scrawled across the envelope in a handwriting which looked like a barbed-wire railing.
(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
The particular one at which my cabman pulled up had an air of smug and demure respectability in its old-fashioned iron railings, its massive folding-door, and its shining brasswork.
(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
At the doorway of the Howe Street flats a man, muffled in a cravat and greatcoat, was leaning against the railing.
(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
The area door of Oberstein’s house had been left open the night before, and it was necessary for me, as Mycroft Holmes absolutely and indignantly declined to climb the railings, to pass in and open the hall door.
(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
