asking

Etymology

From Middle English asking, askyng, askynge, from Old English āscung (“asking; question; inquiry”), equivalent to ask + -ing.

verb

1. present participle and gerund of ask

noun

1. The act or process of posing a question or making a request.
   His asking was greeted with silence.
2. (rare in the singular) A request, or petition.
   After many askings, pleadings, and episodes, all leading to nothing, she finally slumped down at the side of a well in a village where she was unknown. 2005, Beth Miller, The Woman's Book of Resilience: 12 Qualities to Cultivate, page 125
3. (in the plural) The marriage banns.

adj

1. That asks; that expresses a question or request.
   It was as when some great gentle dog brings in a limp and bedraggled prize dug from the yard and, laying it at one’s feet, looks up at one with soft asking eyes. 1924, Edna Ferber, So Big, New York: Grosset & Dunlap, page 109
   […] all of them looked at each other in an asking way. 1942, Zora Neale Hurston, chapter 12, in Dust Tracks on a Road, New York: Arno Press and The New York Times, published 1969, page 235