Updating

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Making something current by adding new information or corrections
2. Bringing a system or document up to the latest standard or version
3. Refreshing or revising data or content to reflect recent changes

Etymology: "Updating" is the present participle and gerund of "update", a word built from the prefix "up-" and "date". The prefix here carries its sense of bringing something to a higher or current level, while "date" in the older sense meant the point in time a record or item was set, so to update something was to bring it up to the present point in time. The verb took on its modern sense of revising software, systems or documents around the late 1940s, when the first recorded use appears. Because "update" is a straightforward compound of two common English elements, the story is less about a single coinage than about how a plain phrase, "bring up to date", was compressed into one word. The participle form "updating" simply follows the same pattern, so the history of the whole family of words rests on that one shift from phrase to verb.

Synonyms: modifying, revising, editing, altering, amending

Antonyms: neglecting, ignoring, overlooking