- present participle of fence.
fencing
Americannoun
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the practice, art, or sport of fighting with swords, esp the sport of using foils, épées, or sabres under a set of rules to score points
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wire, stakes, etc, used as fences
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fences collectively
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skilful or witty debate
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the avoidance of direct answers; evasiveness
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slang the business of buying and selling stolen property
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of fencing
1425–75; late Middle English fensing safeguarding, maintenance. See fence, -ing 1
Explanation
Fencing is a structure that encloses a yard or area, like the fencing that keeps your dog confined. Another kind of fencing is a sport with long pointy foils that has been popular with Hamlet, Holden Caulfield, and lots of other fancy kids. You might buy enough fencing to close in your whole back yard — it could be made of wood, metal, or even plastic, and this material can also be called fencing. A completely different kind of fencing is the sport that involves combat with sword-like weapons. Fencing started as military training and a way of settling disputes, but it grew into a sport during the 18th century, and is now even included in the Olympics.
Vocabulary lists containing fencing
Down on the Farm
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This Week in Words: Current Events Vocab for October 15–October 21, 2022
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The Shakespeare Stealer
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
We got out at the northwestern edge of the lagoon, where there are swaths of land that have been churned up by heavy machinery, stretches of gravel, and remnants of fencing.
From Slate ● Sep. 8, 2026
Homendy described the crash scene as "devastating", with debris from the aircraft, vehicles and airport fencing scattered across the area.
From BBC ● Sep. 7, 2026
Homendy said she walked the path of destruction, seeing the tire marks cut through the grass outside the runway—and navigation equipment, air bags and fencing strewn over the area.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 7, 2026
If the city ultimately decides a physical barrier is necessary, commissioners suggested a lower and more temporary fence, pointing to the chain-link fencing installed around Echo Park in 2021 and removed two years later.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 2, 2026
My body felt strange in the neutral fencing position with my knees bent and pointed outward.
From "Proud" by Ibtihaj Muhammad
A great new boon to the home gardener they are, these wire fencings and nettings.
From The Amateur Garden by George Washington Cable
The air, which had before been charged with little suspicions, toy fencings, as it were, between people of no great importance, was now informed with something more pressing, more imminent, more real.
From A Butterfly on the Wheel by Cyril Arthur Edward Ranger Gull
Ha! ha! my dearest," thought he, "I knew, notwithstanding all your beautiful startings and fencings, that matters would come to this.
From The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of William Carleton, Volume Three by William Carleton
Which infinitely quickens the shadowy rumorings and Diplomatic fencings of mankind.
From History of Friedrich II of Prussia — Volume 11 by Thomas Carlyle
Preventive fencings with the foul intent Occult, by him observed and foiled betimes, Let fool historians chronicle as crimes.
From Poems — Volume 3 by George Meredith
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
