[f. TRAIL v.1 + -ING1.]
1. The action of TRAIL v.1 in various senses. a. Dragging along, hanging down as a robe so as to drag, etc.: see the vb.
13[?]. Min. Poems fr. Vernon MS., xlviii. 194. Wher is þat gomen and þat song, Þat trayling & þat comelich ȝong, Þo haukes and þe houndes?
1377. Langl., P. Pl., B. XII. 242. Þe pekok … may nouȝte fleighe heighe; Fro þe traillyng of his taille ouertaken is he sone.
1671. Grew, Anat. Plants, iii. App. § 9. In that [shade] all Strawberries delight; and by the trailing of the Plant is well obtain’d.
1865. Tylor, Early Hist. Man., iii. 37. The trailing is now done by horses only.
1886. Willis & Clark, Cambridge, I. 579. The trailing of their chains [i.e., of the portcullises in heraldic devices] is as varied in design as that of the stalks and leaves of the roses.
1887. Ruskin, Præterita, II. 265. The trailings and climbings of deep purple convolvulus.
b. The following of a trail, hunting by the trail.
1742. Fielding, Jos. Andrews, III. vi. The best hound that ever pursued a hare;… good at trailing.
1902. St. James’ Gaz., 31 May, 20/1. One can understand the absorbing interest of trailing…. Every animal leaves a trail. The expert even reads the story of a snake’s trail.
c. Billiards. (See quot.)
1873. Bennett & ‘Cavendish,’ Billiards, 7. Trailing, that is following the ball with the mace to such a convenient distance from the other ball as to make it an easy hazard. Ibid., 8. In some games trailing was not allowed except by agreement.
2. concr. A trailing branch or shoot of a plant, a ‘runner’; a trailing part or appendage.
1727. Bradley’s Fam. Dict., s.v. Garden, Strawberries … begin to shoot forth in January…. You may cut off their Trailings in March.
1884. Amer. Meteorol. Jrnl., I. 8. A heavy, low flying … storm cloud with ragged trailings.
