Chronicling

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. The act of recording events in sequence as they happen ; creating a detailed narrative of historical events or developments
2. Systematically noting events over time for documentation ; composing a thorough and factual history of a subject or period
3. Documenting occurrences step-by-step in a record ; writing an informative and structured account of past events

Etymology: "Chronicling" is the present participle of "chronicle," and the verb "chronicle" comes from the noun "chronicle," which is a Middle English borrowing from Anglo-Norman "cronicle," itself from Latin "chronica," from Greek "khronika," meaning "annals" or "matters of time." The Greek base "khronos" means "time," the same root that gives us "chronology" and "chronic." The Greek adjective "khronikos" referred to things pertaining to time, so the earliest sense of the family was simply a record arranged by the passing of years. The verb arrived later than the noun. Chroniclers in medieval Europe wrote year-by-year histories, often in monasteries, where events were logged under the year they occurred, and this habit of ordered, dated record-keeping is what the word preserves. The verb sense, to record something in such a sequence, developed from that noun, so that to chronicle a campaign or a town's growth meant to set it down in its order of occurrence. The "-ing" ending simply turns the verb into a participle or gerund, so "chronicling" can describe the ongoing act of recording or name the activity itself. The word's core idea has stayed constant: events set in time, one after another.

Synonyms: recording, documenting, narrating

Antonyms: forgetting