[f. VENT v.2 + -ING1.]
I. 1. The free emission or passing of air, etc., from some confined space.
1382. Wyclif, Job xxxii. 19. My wombe as must withoute venting, that breketh newe litle win vesselys.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., XI. i. (Tollem. MS.). And so eyer is element of bodies and spirites, for ventynge of eyer comynge to spirites is cause of … clensynge and of purgacion. Ibid., XVII. clxxxvii. (Bodl. MS.). Bi ventinge fome & oþer vnclennes of wine is brouȝth vp to þe mouþe of þe vessel.
1600. Surflet, Countrie Farme, VI. xiv. 754. The vessels to auoid the venting which commonly hapneth vnto wine, must haue the bunghole very well stopt.
1611. Cotgr., Halenée, a breathing, venting, winding, exhaling.
b. Venting-hole, a vent-hole, rare–1.
1601. Holland, Pliny, II. 409. If pits be subject to the rising of such vapours, cunning and expert workemen make … tunnels, or venting-holes.
2. The action or fact of giving utterance, expression or publicity to an opinion, etc.
1654. D. Dickson, Expos. Ps. lxix. 26. The very talking and venting of ill speeches … is a high provocation of God’s wrath.
1665. Boyle, Occas. Refl., IV. xi. (1848), 174. He … was wont … as much to aim at the exciting others thoughts, as the venting of his own.
1825. Coleridge, Aids Refl., xxii. 12. The venting of that knowledge in speech.
a. 1854. H. Reed, Lect. Brit. Poets (1857), 403. They seem to be rather the relief of a heavy heart than the ventings of a light one.
II. † 3. The action of snuffing or smelling. Obs.–0
1611. Cotgr., Flairement, a senting, smelling, sauoring, venting, winding.
4. The rising of an otter to the surface of water in order to breathe.
1741. Compl. Fam.-Piece, II. i. 305. When he lifts up his Nose above Water for Air, it is termed Venting.
1856. ‘Stonehenge,’ Brit. Rur. Sports, 144/1. The remainder [of the otter-hunters] must watch every intervening yard for his ‘ventings.’
