💎 A body hole 🔊 Very sharp 🧐 Very insightful

piercing

49 2.8

A small hole in the body made to wear jewelry like earrings

noun
/ˈpɪərsɪŋ/

: piercing

And how many piercings will you have now?
body piercing
ear piercing
tattoos and piercings

A man's genital piercing gets caught on his ex wife's IUDA.

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Examples

I have six piercings.

American Pie Presents: Band Camp (2005)
So this is gonna be a weird video because I'm actually going to show you my belly button piercing because it is so cool.
You got a piercing right here on your head.
Oh my God, I have a nose piercing guys.
So random but I had a piercing done in my ear about two years ago now.
I have a loose idea of which piercings I want.
How many piercings does Jenny have?
Oh my God, my nipple piercing just got caught in the mesh.
What kind of nipple piercing would create an X pattern on the nipple?
She decided to get a piercing in her ear to wear her favorite earrings.

Compounds

ear-piercing

1 4.1

Very loud, high sound that hurts your ears

ear-piercing scream

4.6

A very loud, high scream that hurts your ears

Surface Forms

piercing singular

piercings plural

Morphology

piercing = pierce (transparent) = pierce + ing

The noun is an -ing nominalization of the verb 'pierce' referring to the result or act (a hole made), which learners can derive from the base verb.

Etymology

Piercing comes from the word pierce, which means 'to make a hole' or 'to go through'. A body piercing is literally the small hole made so you can wear jewelry, so the origin explains the modern meaning.