GOSSIPING

Pronunciation (US):

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does gossiping mean? 

• GOSSIPING (noun)
  The noun GOSSIPING has 1 sense:

1. a conversation that spreads personal information about other people

  Familiarity information: GOSSIPING used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• GOSSIPING (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A conversation that spreads personal information about other people

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Synonyms:

gossiping; gossipmongering

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

conversation (the use of speech for informal exchange of views or ideas or information etc.)

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

scandalmongering (spreading malicious gossip)

Derivation:

gossip (wag one's tongue; speak about others and reveal secrets or intimacies)

 Context examples 

“No gossiping! Go about your business! And you, what the devil do you want here?”

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

However, I must not sit gossiping here, but must get these disreputable clothes off and return to my highly respectable self.

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

"You're gossiping like a pair of beldames," she chided them.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

He begins with congratulations on the approaching nuptials of my eldest daughter, of which, it seems, he has been told by some of the good-natured, gossiping Lucases.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

So it naturally fell out that Meg got into the way of gadding and gossiping with her friend.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

So here we are, installed in this beautiful old house, and from both my bedroom and the drawing-room I can see the great elms of the cathedral close, with their great black stems standing out against the old yellow stone of the cathedral and I can hear the rooks overhead cawing and cawing and chattering and gossiping all day, after the manner of rooks—and humans.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

It was a very long street of two-story brick houses, neat and prim, with whitened stone steps and little groups of aproned women gossiping at the doors.

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