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Glite Dictionary
🌞 Getting a tan 🧴 For tanning skin
suntanning

suntanning

1 2.7
The activity of staying in the sun to make your skin darker
  • noun
  • /ˈsʌnˌtænɪŋ/
translation icon : tomar el sol
  • Many people enjoy suntanning at the beach during summer vacation.

Examples

  • We are the Swedish suntanning team on our way to the Hawaiian Tropics competition in bars.

    Boat Trip (2002)

  • All, if not most of us, attribute things like beach volleyball and suntanning sessions to the sunny island of Sentosa.

    Blog text (8)

  • Locating a control panel of switches, she flipped the top three one by one and got a fan, a suntanning lamp, and Vivaldi.

    Fiction book (1991)

  • He applied sunscreen before suntanning to protect his skin from sunburn.

  • After spending the day suntanning, she admired her newly tanned skin in the mirror.

Synonyms

tanning
vssuntanning
34 2.4

Skin becomes darker after being in the sun

is the deliberate activity of exposing skin to sunlight to darken it
sunbathing
vssuntanning
8 1.5

Time spent in the sun to tan or feel warm

is focused on exposing skin to sunlight to make it darker rather than for enjoyment
sunbath
vssuntanning
1 2.5

Lying in the sun to get warm or to tan the skin

is aimed specifically at making skin darker rather than for warmth

How Long

tanning
34 2.4
suntanning
1 2.7
sunbathing
8 1.5

Surface Forms

suntanning singular
suntannings plural

Morphology

suntanning = suntan (transparent) = sun + tan + ing

Built from the verb 'suntan' + '-ing' to denote the activity of tanning in the sun, which is a straightforward gerund/participle formation.

Etymology

Suntanning comes from joining sun and tanning, with tan meaning 'to make brown' like the colour 'tan'. That is why suntanning refers to the activity of using the sun to make your skin darker.