writing
/ˈrʌɪtɪŋ
/noun [mass noun]
1The activity or skill of writing: parents want schools to concentrate on reading, writing, and arithmetic...
- Proposal writing is a vital skill that many business owners haven't mastered.
- The skill of writing, however, did not become common in the West for hundreds of years.
- It's an academic course and there's lots of reading and writing.
1.1A sequence of letters, words, or symbols marked on a surface: a leather product with gold writing on it he asked them to put their complaints in writing...
- In cuneiform writing, words are represented by signs incised into clay tablets by a wedge-shaped instrument.
- Mr Shackleton remembered his attacker was wearing a navy blue crew-neck sweater with a badge emblem and red writing on it.
- There is a sign by the door, embedded writing on a gold plate, but she is too far away to read it.
1.2Handwriting: his writing looked crabbed...
- Her eyes skimmed the familiar writing and descended knowingly on that one sentence that seemed to haunt her desperately.
- The writing seemed oddly familiar, but Sakura couldn't remember who wrote like that.
- The writing seemed familiar but he couldn't quite put his thumb on whose exactly it was.
Synonyms
handwriting, hand, script, penmanship, pen, print, printing, longhand, calligraphy, chirography;
letters
informal scribble, scrawl, fist
2The activity or occupation of composing text for publication: she made a decent living from writing...
- Lawrence's nomadic life supplied him with material for much of his writing and he wrote four travel books of a very personal kind.
- Speaking for myself, I would say it is possible to make a living out of writing.
- I have not worked at a job for nine years, doing only freelance writing.
2.1Written work, especially with regard to its style or quality: the writing is straightforward and accessible...
- Oh, his writing has a certain style and he can say a simple thing.
- There are vast differences of thought and style within classical writing.
- He makes this point in his Clarkson style in a brilliant piece of writing for the Sunday Times.
2.2 (writings) Books, stories, or other written works: the writings of Gertrude Stein...
- An annotated bibliography of his writings on Cornish folklore is also presented.
- The Jewish prayer book is drawn from the writings of the Jewish people across the ages.
- Chomsky's political writings are littered with violations of these conventions.
Synonyms
compositions, works, oeuvre, opus, books, volumes, publications, titles, tomes;
papers, articles, essays
2.3 (the Writings) The Hagiographa.The tripartite division of Jewish tradition into Law, Prophets, and Writings does not favor a midpoint, or at least has not led to a discussion of center, despite the importance of the Torah....
- When the time comes that these young students and mature scholars become rabbis in Israel and have to prepare Derashot, or sermons, they will surely need to search in Prophets and Writings for texts.
- But there is a secondary history (Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah) included in the Writings.
Phrases
the writing (or handwriting) is on the wall