whizzing meaning: definition, quotations

whizzing

noun

The sound or action of something that whizzes.

At length it grew dark; they though, they heard a sound of whizzing and snorting in the air, such as the swans use to make in the winter time.1828, Thomas Keightley, The Fairy Mythology, volume I, London: William Harrison Ainsworth, page 214:
For, when the line is darting out, to be seated then in the boat, is like being seated in the midst of the manifold whizzings of a steam-engine in full play[…]1851 November 14, Herman Melville, chapter 60, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC:

adj

Spinning rapidly.

Producing a whizz; giving off a whizzing noise.

From inside the mill there came a whizzing, whirring, and clashing sound, and now and then a bright saw-blade flashed in the air, as if in combat with the spirits of the night, to cut the stumps and uneven ends off the logs.1886, Peter Christen Asbjø￵rnsen, translated by H.L. Brækstad, Folk and Fairy Tales, page 154: