anting
ant·ing/ˈæntɪŋ/noun
anting is a noun meaning “The practice of some birds of rubbing live ants or occasionally other items into the feathers, possibly as a means of controlling parasites” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled A-N-T-I-N-G and has 2 syllables (ant·ing), and it appears about once in every 28 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data).
What does anting mean?
noun
- 1
The practice of some birds of rubbing live ants or occasionally other items into the feathers, possibly as a means of controlling parasites.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce anting?
- UK /ˈæntɪŋ/
Anting has 2 syllables, split ant·ing in writing.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-au-anting.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
How common is anting?
Anting appears about once in every 28 million words in written English, the 161,690th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Anting in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense bird behaviour:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | formicage |
| German | Einemsen |
| Portuguese | comportamento/ação de formicar-se |
| Spanish | baño de hormigas |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does anting come from?
From ant + -ing.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).