Meaning & use
dating
Last updated
Meanings
noununcountable
The activity of spending time with someone you are attracted to, to see whether you want a romantic relationship.
Grammar: Uncountable; no article: online dating is popular.
Patterns
- dating someone
- a dating app/site
Online dating has changed how people meet.
She was nervous about dating again after her divorce.
They talked about dating while eating lunch.
verbtransitive
Having a romantic relationship with someone, going out together regularly; the -ing form of date.
Grammar: Takes an object: she is dating a pilot; often in the continuous: are you dating anyone?
Patterns
- be dating someone
He has been dating Maria since the summer.
Are you dating anyone at the moment?
They started dating in high school.
noununcountabletechnical
The process of working out or recording how old an object, event or fossil is.
Grammar: Uncountable and technical: carbon dating of bones.
Patterns
- the dating of something
- carbon dating
Carbon dating showed the bones were nearly nine thousand years old.
The dating of the manuscript is still disputed.
Careful dating of the layers helped archaeologists build a timeline.
verbtransitive
Writing a date on something, or showing that something comes from a certain time; the -ing form of date.
Grammar: Takes an object: dating the letter; dating from a period.
Patterns
- dating from a period
- dating a document
She is dating the check as the first of the month.
The church, dating from the twelfth century, is open to visitors.
He spent the morning dating old photographs.
Word forms
| base form | date |
|---|---|
| past tense | dated |
| third person singular | dates |
Common combinations
- online dating
- She met her partner through online dating.
- dating app
- He deleted the dating app after meeting someone.
- carbon dating
- Carbon dating is used to estimate the age of ancient wood.
- dating back to
- The castle has a tower dating back to 1200.
- dating scene
- The dating scene in big cities can feel exhausting.
- start dating
- They started dating last spring.
Synonyms and how they differ
- courting
- Courting is old-fashioned and suggests a serious aim of marriage, while dating is casual and modern.
- going out
- Going out is the informal British phrase for being in a relationship, while dating can also mean the early stage of getting to know someone.
- seeing someone
- Seeing someone is vaguer and more private, and it may hide how serious the relationship is.
Opposites
Word family
Commonly confused: dating or dating from?
dating vs dating from
Dating from describes the age of something (a bridge dating from 1900), but dating alone usually means romantic relationships.
Practice
Archaeologists used carbon ______ to estimate how old the wooden tool was.
Choose one answer.
Carbon dating is the standard noun phrase for estimating the age of ancient objects. 'Dated' and 'dates' are verb forms, and 'date' does not fit the established phrase.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “dating”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.