FENCING

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does fencing mean? 

• FENCING (noun)
  The noun FENCING has 3 senses:

1. a barrier that serves to enclose an area

2. material for building fences

3. the art or sport of fighting with swords (especially the use of foils or epees or sabres to score points under a set of rules)

  Familiarity information: FENCING used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• FENCING (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A barrier that serves to enclose an area

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Synonyms:

fence; fencing

Hypernyms ("fencing" is a kind of...):

barrier (a structure or object that impedes free movement)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "fencing"):

backstop ((baseball) a fence or screen (as behind home plate) to prevent the ball from traveling out of the playing field)

chainlink fence (a fence of steel wires woven into a diamond pattern)

hedge; hedgerow (a fence formed by a row of closely planted shrubs or bushes)

paling; picket fence (a fence made of upright pickets)

rail fence; split-rail fence (a fence (usually made of split logs laid across each other at an angle))

stone wall (a fence built of rough stones; used to separate fields)

wall (a masonry fence (as around an estate or garden))

weir (a fence or wattle built across a stream to catch or retain fish)

Holonyms ("fencing" is a part of...):

fence line (a boundary line created by a fence)

Derivation:

fence (enclose with a fence)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Material for building fences

Classified under:

Nouns denoting substances

Synonyms:

fencing; fencing material

Hypernyms ("fencing" is a kind of...):

building material (material used for constructing buildings)

Sense 3

Meaning:

The art or sport of fighting with swords (especially the use of foils or epees or sabres to score points under a set of rules)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Hypernyms ("fencing" is a kind of...):

combat; fight; fighting; scrap (the act of fighting; any contest or struggle)

play; swordplay (the act using a sword (or other weapon) vigorously and skillfully)

Domain member category:

lunge; passado; straight thrust ((fencing) an attacking thrust made with one foot forward and the back leg straight and with the sword arm outstretched forward)

parry ((fencing) blocking a lunge or deflecting it with a circular motion of the sword)

remise ((fencing) a second thrust made on the same lunge (as when your opponent fails to riposte))

riposte ((fencing) a counterattack made immediately after successfully parrying the opponents lunge)

epee (a fencing sword similar to a foil but with a heavier blade)

foil (a light slender flexible sword tipped by a button)

piste (a flat rectangular area for fencing bouts)

saber; sabre (a fencing sword with a v-shaped blade and a slightly curved handle)

riposte (make a return thrust)

Derivation:

fence (fight with fencing swords)

 Context examples 

If you touch them or things they have touched, like fencing or buckets, wash your hands thoroughly.

(Animal Diseases and Your Health, NIH)

He provided foils for us, and Steerforth gave me lessons in fencing—gloves, and I began, of the same master, to improve in boxing.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

You can teach me, and then when we play Hamlet, you can be Laertes, and we'll make a fine thing of the fencing scene.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

“He was the only friend I made during the two years I was at college. I was never a very sociable fellow, Watson, always rather fond of moping in my rooms and working out my own little methods of thought, so that I never mixed much with the men of my year. Bar fencing and boxing I had few athletic tastes, and then my line of study was quite distinct from that of the other fellows, so that we had no points of contact at all. Trevor was the only man I knew, and that only through the accident of his bull terrier freezing on to my ankle one morning as I went down to chapel.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Begging your pardon, ma'am, it wasn't a billiard saloon, but a gymnasium, and I was taking a lesson in fencing.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)