coasting

English

Verb

coasting

1. present participle and gerund of coast

Noun

coasting (countable and uncountable, plural coastings)

1. The act of sailing along a coast, or from port to port.
   • 1772, A Select Collection of Letters of the Late Reverend George Whitefield, page 390:

     Glory be to God, all sublunary coastings will soon be over. Yet a little while, and we shall get into an eternal harbour.

   • 1887, Harriet W. Daly, Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, page 125:

     She had been lying quietly in the harbour and making little coasting trips ever since we arrived in her twelve months before.

2. The act of disengaging the gears of a moving vehicle and rolling along without the use of engine power.
   • 2020 September 23, “Network News: AWC employs coasting to minimise disruption”, in Rail, page 26:

     Avanti West Coast has introduced the use of coasting with its Pendolino fleet, in an effort to keep disruption during overhead line equipment failures to a minimum. [...] The Class 390s coasted for three miles without power between Harrow & Wealdstone and Wembley Central, running under damaged OLE.

Derived terms

• coasting trade
• coasting vessel

 

Anagrams

• Costigan, agnostic, angio-CTs, coatings, cotingas, scoating