TACKING

Pronunciation (US):

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does tacking mean? 

• TACKING (noun)
  The noun TACKING has 2 senses:

1. a loose temporary sewing stitch to hold layers of fabric together

2. (nautical) the act of changing tack

  Familiarity information: TACKING used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• TACKING (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A loose temporary sewing stitch to hold layers of fabric together

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Synonyms:

baste; basting; basting stitch; tacking

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

embroidery stitch; sewing stitch (a stitch made with thread and a threaded sewing needle through fabric or leather)

Sense 2

Meaning:

(nautical) the act of changing tack

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

tack; tacking

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

change of course (a change in the direction that you are moving)

Domain category:

navigation; sailing; seafaring (the work of a sailor)

Derivation:

tack (turn into the wind)

 Context examples 

On the way he passed the fishing village of Pitt's Deep, and marked that a little creyer or brig was tacking off the land, as though about to anchor there.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

In the light baffling airs the schooner had been tacking about a great deal, at which times the sails pass from one side to the other and a man is sent aloft to shift over the fore-gaff-topsail.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

I make bold to say that the man who can carry these objects out with success has deserved better of the country than the officer of a battleship, tacking from Ushant to the Black Rocks and back again until she builds up a reef with her beef-bones.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The line-of-battle ships themselves, tacking on and off outside Brest, could earn nothing save honour; but the frigates in attendance made prizes of many coasters, and these, as is the rule of the service, were counted as belonging to the fleet, and their produce divided into head-money.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

It was on the morning of Friday, the eight-and-twentieth day of November, two days before the feast of St. Andrew, that the cog and her two prisoners, after a weary tacking up the Gironde and the Garonne, dropped anchor at last in front of the noble city of Bordeaux.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)