Pronging

Part of speech: verb, gerund

Definitions

1. To move or leap forward with sudden thrusts or to engage using pointed projections; an act of stabbing or piercing with sharp tips; a posture or action characterized by sudden upward or forward movements
2. To make swift, jerking motions upward or forward involving pointed extensions; to stab or poke using sharp ends; a dynamic or aggressive gesture involving thrusts or leaps
3. To propel oneself or something by sudden, pointed thrusts; to puncture or impale with pointed elements; exhibiting a behavior or movement marked by quick, sharp motions using projecting tips

Etymology: "Pronging" is simply the present participle and gerund of "prong", so its story is really the story of the noun. A prong began as a stick or device used to hold something in place, and the root idea is pressure. Its ancestor was a Middle Low German word, "prange", meaning a stick or restraining device, from a verb meaning "to press" or "to pinch". The same ancient root gives Lithuanian "spriñgti", meaning to choke or become obstructed. The word's older roots reach even further back. Its Proto-Indo-European ancestor, reconstructed as "(s)preng-", meant "to wrap up" or "constrict", and it is also the source of the Ancient Greek "sparganon", a swaddling cloth for an infant. A prong, then, was originally something that clamps or binds, and only later came to mean a pointed tine. "Pronging" carries that sense of jabbing with those tines, a far cry from the original idea of holding something tight.

Synonyms: stabbing, piercing, goring, jab, piercing

Antonyms: withdrawing, pulling, retreating, retracting, retiring