Old English fæt; related to Old Frisian fet, Old Saxon, Old Norse fat, Old High German faz
vatting in American English
(ˈvætɪŋ)
noun
the stage of winemaking during which the expressed juice of grapes has been placed in vats and left to ferment
Word origin
[1835–45; vat + -ing1]This word is first recorded in the period 1835–45. Other words that entered Englishat around the same time include: cutaway, faceplate, grandstand, placement, protein-ing is a suffix of nouns formed from verbs, expressing the action of the verb or itsresult, product, material, etc. (the art of building; a new building; cotton wadding). It is also used to form nouns from words other than verbs (offing; shirting). Verbal nouns ending in -ing are often used attributively (the printing trade) and in forming compounds (drinking song). In some compounds (sewing machine), the first element might reasonably be regarded as the participial adjective, -ing, the compound thus meaning “a machine that sews,” but it is commonly taken as a verbalnoun, the compound being explained as “a machine for sewing”