tubing, vbl. n.
(ˈtjuːbɪŋ)
[f. tube v. or n. + -ing1.]
a. The action of furnishing with a tube or tubes; also concr. tubes collectively, or as a material; a length or piece of tube. Also attrib.
| 1845 I. Farrell Archimedean Railw. 8 This rail is made of iron tubing. 1854 J. Scoffern in Orr's Circ. Sc., Chem. 350 India-rubber tubing can be obtained. 1881 Raymond Mining Gloss., Tubing, lining a deep bore-hole by driving down iron tubes. 1886 J. Barrowman Sc. Mining Terms 69 Tubing, sheet-iron lining of a bore-hole. 1909 Installation News III. 112/1 Any carpenter could locate the weak spots in tubing work. |
b. (See quot. 1976.) U.S.
| 1975 Newsweek 3 Feb. 69 But the big rage of the ski year—and the most painful—is a pastime called ‘tubing’. For experts, the idea is to take a running start and then execute a belly-flop onto an ordinary inflated inner tube. 1976 Webster's Sports Dict. 464/1 Tubing, the sport or pastime of riding down a river or of sliding down a snow-covered slope on an inflated automobile inner tube. 1979 United States 1980/81 (Penguin Travel Guides) 367 Tubing—Arizona's most popular summer sport. On any given weekend, as many as 20,000 residents strap beer-filled ice chests and their behinds to old inner tubes and float down the five or ten miles of free-flowing Salt River below Saguaro Lake. |