dusting

Etymology

verb

1. present participle and gerund of dust

noun

1. A light snowfall.
   The rooves are covered with a dusting of snow.
2. A light covering of something.
   Cover the cake with a dusting of confectioner's sugar.
3. The act of removing dust from the furniture, as a household chore.
   Tuesday is the day when I do the dusting.
   Strict orders had been given by Mrs. Breen the night before that certain dustings and arrangings of furniture should take place, the spacious stairs swept, and the hectic hired palms in their great china pots watered. 1908, Francis Hopkinson Smith, Peter: A Novel of Which He Is Not the Hero
4. (colloquial) A beating.
5. A maintenance or comfort behaviour in which a bird flushes fine dirt through the feathers; dust-bathing.