[f. TROT v. + -ING1.] The action of the verb TROT in various senses; spec. in U.S., a trotting-race.
14[?]. Beryn, 2402. Yeur rennyng & yeur trotting, in-to an esy pase I shall turn.
1470–85. Malory, Arthur, III. xiii. 116. A lytel afore mydnyȝt they herd the trottynge of an hors.
1581. Mulcaster, Positions, xxiv. (1887), 98. Trotting … shaketh the bodie to violently.
1646. Sir T. Browne, Pseud. Ep., IV. vi. 193. Animalls … move per latera,… or per diametrum,… lifting the foot before, and the crosse foot behinde, which is succussation or trotting.
1787. ‘G. Gambado,’ Acad. Horsem., Title-p., Instructions for Walking, Trotting, Cantering, Galloping.
1873. H. E. P. Spofford, Pilot’s Wife, in Casquet Lit., IV. 13/2. She and the nurse made such a racket…, with their shshshing and trotting and patting and stirring and sipping.
1882. Standard, 26 Sept., 2/2. At Lynn and other parts of the Wash they [whelks] are caught by a mode of fishing designated ‘trotting.’ Green crabs are threaded together and let down into the water, and the whelk,… while sucking the meat out of the crabs, is easily drawn to the surface.
1883. F. M. Crawford, Dr. Claudius, v. ‘Do you have much racing in America?’… ‘Yes. Trotting. Ag’d nags in sulkies. See how fast they can go a mile.’
b. attrib., as trotting-match, -race, -sulky, -term (see TROT v. 2), -track, -turf.
1840. Blaine, Encycl. Rur. Sports, § 1046. Formerly it was a maxim in trotting races, that weight did not form a considerable object. Ibid., § 1049. The distances of this trotting match were [etc.].
1863. ‘Ouida,’ Held in Bondage (1870), 41. The certainty that Vane Steven’s roan filly would lose the trotting-match.
1883. Durham Univ. Jrnl., 17 Dec., 141. I’m going to keep a trotting term.
1888. Lighthall, Yng. Seigneur, 74. The horse-trader’s trotting-sulky was standing at the door.
1893. Outing (U.S.), May, 98/1. The perfect trotting track of the present time is built [etc.]. Ibid., 99/1. This early heroine of the trotting turf.
