seasoning

From season +‎ -ing.

seasoning (countable and uncountable, plural seasonings)

1. (cooking) Something used to add taste or flavour to food, such as salt and pepper or other condiment, herb or spice.
   • 1989, Yoga Journal, number 89, page 82:

     To distinctify the seasoning, add grated fresh ginger, finely minced green chili (serrano or jalapeno), or chopped fresh herbs: cilantro, mint, thyme.

   • 2024 February 1, Maggie Hiufu Wong, “MSG is the most misunderstood ingredient of the century. That’s finally changing”, in CNN‎:

     “We use it in drinks. We use it in desserts. We use it in savory food. It’s in almost everything. Salt, sugar and MSG – I always joke that they’re the Chinese Trinity of seasonings.”

2. (figurative, by extension) Anything added to increase enjoyment.
3. A coat of polymerized oil inside a cooking vessel which renders the surface non-stick.
4. (archaic) An alcoholic intoxication.

   Some of our gentlemen officers, happening to stop at a tavern, or rather a sort of grogshop, took such a seasoning that two or three of them became “quite frisky.”

5. In diamond-cutting, the charging of the laps or wheels with diamond dust and oil.
6. The air drying of wood.

• (intoxication): drunkenness

• See also Thesaurus:seasoning

From Middle English seasonyng, present participle of Middle English sesounen (“to season”), equivalent to season +‎ -ing.

seasoning

1. present participle and gerund of season

• snogaines