licking

Other forms of licking

plural

lickings·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about licking

What does licking mean?

licking means "an unsuccessful ending to a struggle or contest". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in licking?

licking has 2 syllables: lic-king. The stress falls on "lic". In IPA it is /ˈlɪkɪŋ/.

What is another word for licking?

Close synonyms include defeat, beating, thrashing, drubbing, lacing. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is licking a common word?

licking is banded "Familiar" — widely understood, used when the subject calls for it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.