[1575–85; perh. to be identified with ME heldinge, hilding bending, swerving aside, OE hylding, equiv. to hyld(an) to bend, incline + -ing -ing1]This word is first recorded in the period 1575–85. Other words that entered Englishat around the same time include: conventional, energy, lyric, magazine, snug-ing is a suffix of nouns formed from verbs, expressing the action of the verb or itsresult, product, material, etc. (the art of building; a new building; cotton wadding). It is also used to form nouns from words other than verbs (offing; shirting). Verbal nouns ending in -ing are often used attributively (the printing trade) and in forming compounds (drinking song). In some compounds (sewing machine), the first element might reasonably be regarded as the participial adjective, -ing, the compound thus meaning “a machine that sews,” but it is commonly taken as a verbalnoun, the compound being explained as “a machine for sewing”