TRIMMING • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Trimming

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/trˈɪmɪŋ/ Listen

verb

Trim v. t. (past & past part. trimmed; pres. part. trimming)

1.

To make trim; to put in due order for any purpose; to make right, neat, or pleasing; to adjust. "The hermit trimmed his little fire."

2.

To dress; to decorate; to adorn; to invest; to embellish; as, to trim a hat. "A rotten building newly trimmed over." "I was trimmed in Julia's gown."

3.

To make ready or right by cutting or shortening; to clip or lop; to curtail; as, to trim the hair; to trim a tree. " And trimmed the cheerful lamp."

4.

(Carp.) To dress, as timber; to make smooth.

5.

(Naut.)

(a)

To adjust, as a ship, by arranging the cargo, or disposing the weight of persons or goods, so equally on each side of the center and at each end, that she shall sit well on the water and sail well; as, to trim a ship, or a boat.

(b)

To arrange in due order for sailing; as, to trim the sails.

6.

To rebuke; to reprove; also, to beat. (Colloq.)

To trim in (Carp.), to fit, as a piece of timber, into other work.

To trim up, to dress; to put in order. "I found her trimming up the diadem On her dead mistress."

Trim v. i. To balance; to fluctuate between parties, so as to appear to favor each.

noun

Trimming n.

1.

The act of one who trims.

2.

That which serves to trim, make right or fitting, adjust, ornament, or the like; especially, the necessary or the ornamental appendages, as of a garment; hence, sometimes, the concomitants of a dish; a relish; usually in the plural.

3.

The act of reprimanding or chastisting; as, to give a boy a trimming. (Colloq.)

adjective

Trimming adj. A. from Trim, v. "The Whigs are, essentially, an inefficient, trimming, halfway sort of a party."

Trimming joist (Arch.), a joist into which timber trimmers are framed; a header. See Header.

See images of 'Trimming'

Etymology of 'Trimming'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

"Trimming" Quotes from Famous Books

... appearance. In single suits I saw sleeves of one color, the waist of another, the skirt of another; scarlet jackets and gray skirts; black waists and blue skirts; black skirts and gray waists; the trimming chiefly gold braid and buttons, to give a military air. The gray and gold uniforms of the officers, glittering between, made up a carnival of color. Every moment we saw strange meetings and partings ...

— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable

... evaporation. The steam contains the aroma or fine volatile oil and essentials which pass into the air. In a fairly large family little meat need be purchased for the stock pot if the housewife insists that all portions of bone and trimming be sent with the purchased meat. The French women look with horror on the American women leaving all the scrap and trimming to ...

— Mrs. Wilson's Cook Book - Numerous New Recipes Based on Present Economic Conditions • Mary A. Wilson

... irresistible. In the presence of the irresistible the conventional is a crazy structure swept away with very little creaking of its timbers on the flood. When we feel its power we are immediately primitive creatures, flying anywhere in space, indifferent to nakedness. And after trimming ourselves for it, the sage asks your permission to add, it will be the thing we are most certain some day to feel. Had not she trimmed herself?—so much that she had won fame for an originality mistaken by her for the independent ...

— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... the guides," said Mr. Waterman. "He's a corker. He's been up in through to Lac Corbeau trimming up some of ...

— Bob Hunt in Canada • George W. Orton

... simply because they looked for something deep and recondite, when the solution lay almost upon the very surface. Was Catharine sincerely in favor of peace? She was never sincere. Her Macchiavellian training, the enforced hypocrisy of her married life, the trimming policy she had thought herself compelled to pursue during the minority of the kings, her two sons, had eaten from her soul, even to its root, truthfulness—that pure plant of heaven's sowing. Loving peace only because it freed her from the fears, the embarrassments, the vexations of war—not ...

— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird

Copyright © 2025 Free Translator.org