Wiktionary

following

English

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Etymology

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By surface analysis, follow +‎ -ing.

Pronunciation

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Adjective

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following (not comparable)

  1. Coming next, either in sequence or in time.
    Synonyms: succeeding; see also Thesaurus:subsequent
    Antonyms: preceding; see also Thesaurus:former
    See the following section.
  2. About to be specified.
    Synonym: undermentioned
    Antonyms: abovementioned, aforementioned, aforesaid
    The following words have no definition […]
  3. (of a wind) Blowing in the direction of travel.
    The following wind sped us on our way.

Usage notes

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(Senses 1, 2) When it modifies a noun phrase, it is generally preceded by the definite article the, and the combination functions as a determiner rather than a simple adjective. You can put it before a cardinal like the following two remarks instead of the two following remarks.

Derived terms

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Translations

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The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked

Preposition

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following

  1. (sometimes proscribed) After, subsequent to.
    Antonyms: before, prior to
    Following the meeting, we all had a chat.
    We published our findings following a thorough review of others' earlier reports.
  2. In accordance with; as per.
    Synonym: per
    Following all relevant safety instructions, administer a dose of the corticosteroid.
    Administer a dose of the corticosteroid, following all relevant safety instructions.

Usage notes

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Among usage mavens, there is a long tradition of deprecating following (in its "after" sense) in favor of after, coordinate with the long tradition of deprecating prior to in favor of before; the rationale is avoiding puffery via (as some mavens call them) fancy words where plain ones would be better. However, there is an equally long tradition of writers not knowing of, caring about, or bothering with these prescriptions, as well as an enduring urge to use fancy words to try to sound formal and authoritative.

Translations

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Noun

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following (plural followings)

  1. A group of followers, attendants or admirers; an entourage.
    He had a loyal following.
    • 2011 September 29, Jon Smith, “Tottenham 3 - 1 Shamrock Rovers”, in BBC Sport‎[1]:
      And White Hart Lane was stunned when Rovers scored just five minutes after the restart in front of their away following.
    • 2023 January 31, Katelyn Mensah, “Who is Mikayla Nogueira? The beauty TikToker whose face and eyelashes are all over your FYP”, in The Tab‎[2], archived from the original on 31 January 2023:
      Mikayla has 14.4 million followers on TikTok and it is growing every day, and she has accumulated over one billion likes on the app. She also has 2.5 million followers on Instagram. Both her followings accumulate to an impressive 16.9, almost 17 million followers.
    • 2023 May 14, Rebecca Ratcliffe, Thitipol Panyalimpanun, “Opposition parties take lead in Thai election”, in The Guardian‎[3]:
      Move Forward, which has built a strong following among young people, appeared to have outperformed expectations.
  2. Vocation; business; profession.
  3. (with definite article, treated as singular or plural) A thing or things to be mentioned immediately after.
    The following is a recommendation letter from the president.
    The following are the three most important questions.
  4. (social media) An account which is followed.
    Coordinate term: follower
    • 2014, Zhengbiao Guo, Zhitang Li, Hao Tu, Da Xie, “Weibo: An Information-Driven Online Social Network”, in Marina L.Gavrilova, C.J. Kenneth Tan, editors, Transactions on Computational Science XXII (Lecture Notes in Computer Science; 8360), Springer, →ISBN, part I (Neural and Social Networks), page 6:
      When a new user joins Weibo, he should register Weibo and get a unique ID, and then he takes some existing users as his followings and waits for others to follow him.
    • 2017, Konglin Zhu, Xiaoming Fu, Wenzhong Li, Sanglu Lu, Jan Nagler, “Population Growth in Online Social Networks”, in Xiaoming Fu, Jar-Der Luo, Margarete Boos, editors, Social Network Analysis: Interdisciplinary Approaches and Case Studies, CRC Press, →ISBN, section 3 (The Data), subsection 1 (Three Online Social Networks):
      A follower can follow any other users and receive any kind of tweets from his or her followings.
    • 2020, Jay Janzee, Don’t Get Too Close, Pittsburgh, Pa.: RoseDog Books, →ISBN, page 79:
      She scrolled through her [Chloe’s] page and liked a few of her pictures that were like candy to her eyes before thoroughly checking her followings. She then checked Chloe’s followers, which was well over a thousand followers.

Translations

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Verb

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following

  1. present participle and gerund of follow
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