Comynge

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An archaic Middle English spelling meaning the act of arriving or approaching a place
2. Middle English word for the arrival or approach of a person or thing
3. A medieval form of the noun for arriving, the moment someone or something reaches a place

Etymology: Comynge is a Middle English word, a variant spelling of "coming," the present participle and verbal noun of "come." Its roots go back to Old English "cuman," which goes back to a Germanic base shared with Dutch "komen" and German "kommen." In Middle English, "-ynge" and "-inge" were common endings, and scribes spelled the same sound in many ways, so "comynge" simply records the form the word took in the late medieval period, when spelling was not yet standardized. The word's sense is the familiar one: the act or fact of arriving, or the process of approaching. Because Middle English spelling varied so widely, a reader should expect to meet "comynge," "comyng," "cominge," and similar forms in the same text, all representing one word. Modern English settled on "coming," and the older spelling survives mainly in editions of medieval texts and in scholarly discussions of Middle English.