layering

[ ley-er-ing ]

noun

1. the wearing of lightweight or unconstructed garments one upon the other, as to create a fashionable ensemble or to provide warmth without undue bulkiness or heaviness.
2. Tailoring. the trimming of multiple layers of fabric at the seam allowance of a garment so as to prevent a ridge on the face of the garment when the seam is sewn.
3. Horticulture. Also lay·er·age [] a method of propagating plants by causing their shoots to take root while still attached to the parent plant.

layering

/ ˈleɪərɪŋ /

noun

1. horticulture a method of propagation that induces a shoot or branch to take root while it is still attached to the parent plant
2. geology the banded appearance of certain igneous and metamorphic rocks, each band being of a different mineral composition

Word History and Origins

Origin of layering¹

layer + -ing ¹

Example Sentences

Other singers from the Master Chorale later joined in and “laid the bricks of a cathedral one at a time,” Gershon said, “layering and combining and building and stacking and removing.”

From Los Angeles Times

In the run-up to the 2018 midterm elections, Elizabeth Bruenig wrote for the Washington Post that Halloween “gets its depth and intrigue from the layering of things that seem frightening but are really benign — toothy jack-o’-lanterns, ghoulish costumes, tales of ghosts and witches and monsters — atop things that seem benign but are really frightening, such as the passage of the harvest season into the long, cold dark.”

From Los Angeles Times

More climate-ambitious states are already layering on their own monetary incentives to decarbonize.

From Salon

“When we’re talking about this particular pilot, the idea is layering in a process and a protocol that makes sense for our system, but also ensuring that we’re doing it in a way that’s discreet, noninvasive,” Metro’s top security official, Robert Gummer, said during a press conference at Union Station on Wednesday.

From Los Angeles Times

Their job is to set rules for poll workers and elections, and they’ve done it with gusto: each year layering on newer, more complicated rules, some of which conflict with their older, more antiquated rules.

From Salon