thickening

Etymology

From thicken +‎ -ing.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈθɪkənɪŋ/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

Noun

thickening (countable and uncountable, plural thickenings)

1. The process of making something, or becoming, thick or viscous.
2. A substance, usually a source of starch, used to thicken a sauce.
3. A thickened part of a structure.
   • 1992, Rudolf M[athias] Schuster, The Hepaticae and Anthocerotae of North America: East of the Hundredth Meridian, volume V, Chicago, Ill.: Field Museum of Natural History, →ISBN, page 6:

     […] the inner layer (of nearly equally large cells) lacks the regular semiannular or annular thickenings of most other leafy liverworts […]

   • 1902, Edwin Hurry Fenwick, Obscure Diseases of the Urethra, page 30:

     They disappear at once on slightly relaxing the air-pressure, whilst true incipient thickenings of the surface remain white and unpliably stiff.

Verb

thickening

1. present participle and gerund of thicken

Adjective

thickening (not comparable)

1. Beginning to thicken, becoming thicker.
   • 1960 January, G. Freeman Allen, “"Condor"—British Railways' fastest freight train”, in Trains Illustrated, page 48:

     From Keighley onwards we had obviously returned to civilisation, for the surrounding country was now studded with the sodium street lights of suburbia and a thickening industrial haze was blotting out the moon.

References

• “thickening”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Anagrams

• kitchening