| / English Dictionary |
KICKING
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
The act of delivering a blow with the foot
Example:
the team's kicking was excellent
Synonyms:
Classified under:
Nouns denoting acts or actions
Hypernyms ("kicking" is a kind of...):
blow (a powerful stroke with the fist or a weapon)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "kicking"):
goal-kick ((association football) a kick by the defending side after the attacking side sends the ball over the goal-line)
goal-kick ((rugby) an attempt to kick a goal)
punt; punting ((football) a kick in which the football is dropped from the hands and kicked before it touches the ground)
place-kicking; place kick ((sports) a kick in which the ball is placed on the ground before kicking)
dropkick ((football) kicking (as for a field goal) in which the football is dropped and kicked as it touches the ground)
Derivation:
kick (strike with the foot)
kick (drive or propel with the foot)
Sense 2
Meaning:
A rhythmic thrusting movement of the legs as in swimming or calisthenics
Example:
the swimmer's kicking left a wake behind him
Synonyms:
kick; kicking
Classified under:
Nouns denoting acts or actions
Hypernyms ("kicking" is a kind of...):
motility; motion; move; movement (a change of position that does not entail a change of location)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "kicking"):
swimming kick (a movement of the legs in swimming)
II. (verb)
Sense 1
-ing form of the verb kick
Context examples:
I hope I am as fond of my child as any mother, but I do not know that I am of any more use in the sick-room than Charles, for I cannot be always scolding and teazing the poor child when it is ill; and you saw, this morning, that if I told him to keep quiet, he was sure to begin kicking about.
(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)
This time at least modern weapons prevailed and the great creature, twelve feet from head to foot—phororachus its name, according to our panting but exultant Professor—went down before Lord Roxton's rifle in a flurry of waving feathers and kicking limbs, with two remorseless yellow eyes glaring up from the midst of it.
(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Sputtering happens when energetic particles are accelerated into the atmosphere and knock molecules around, kicking some of them out into space and sending others crashing into their neighbors, the way a cue ball does in a game of pool.
(Mars Mission Sheds Light on Habitability of Distant Planets, NASA)
This threat was so palpably disregarded, that though within five minutes afterwards the three boys all burst into the room together and sat down, Fanny could not consider it as a proof of anything more than their being for the time thoroughly fagged, which their hot faces and panting breaths seemed to prove, especially as they were still kicking each other's shins, and hallooing out at sudden starts immediately under their father's eye.
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
“He is a bloody robber,” said the trader, curtly, “and I wish I saw him kicking at the end of a halter.”
(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
The first few months were very happy ones, and Beth often used to look round, and say How beautiful this is! as they all sat together in her sunny room, the babies kicking and crowing on the floor, mother and sisters working near, and father reading, in his pleasant voice, from the wise old books which seemed rich in good and comfortable words, as applicable now as when written centuries ago, a little chapel, where a paternal priest taught his flock the hard lessons all must learn, trying to show them that hope can comfort love, and faith make resignation possible.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
He saw himself, stripped to the waist, with naked fists, fighting his great fight with Liverpool Red in the forecastle of the Susquehanna; and he saw the bloody deck of the John Rogers, that gray morning of attempted mutiny, the mate kicking in death- throes on the main-hatch, the revolver in the old man's hand spitting fire and smoke, the men with passion-wrenched faces, of brutes screaming vile blasphemies and falling about him—and then he returned to the central scene, calm and clean in the steadfast light, where Ruth sat and talked with him amid books and paintings; and he saw the grand piano upon which she would later play to him; and he heard the echoes of his own selected and correct words, But then, may I not be peculiarly constituted to write?
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
In the very centre of all these, upon the largest hook of all, there hung a fat little red-faced man with enormous whiskers, kicking madly in the air and clawing at rafters, hams, and all else that was within hand-grasp.
(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
One afternoon, after twenty minutes of desperate efforts to annihilate each other according to set rules that did not permit kicking, striking below the belt, nor hitting when one was down, Cheese-Face, panting for breath and reeling, offered to call it quits.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
Down went the whole ranks in a whirl of mad confusion, horses plunging and kicking, bewildered men falling, rising, staggering on or back, while ever new lines of horsemen came spurring through the gaps and urged their chargers up the fatal slope.
(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
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