vbl. sb. [f. THROAT v. + -ING1.] The action of the verb THROAT. † a. Farming (local). (See quots.) Obs.
1750. W. Ellis, Mod. Husb., V. I. 68 (E.D.S.). When they mow beans against their bending, they [in the Vale of Aylesbury] call it throating.
1763. Museum Rust. (ed. 2), I. 236. It is only when they chance to have a thin crop, that they venture to mow them against their own bending (this they call throating).
b. Building, etc. The cutting of a ‘throat’ or channel; the undercutting of a projecting molding in order to prevent rain water from trickling down the wall; concr. the channel or groove thus cut: = THROAT sb. 6 a (d).
1825. J. Nicholson, Operat. Mechanic, 543. In measuring strings, the weathering is denominated sunk work, and the grooving throatings.
1838. F. W. Simms, Public Wks. Gt. Brit., 9. The coping shall [have] a throating of half an inch wide cut on its underside.
c. 1850. Rudim. Navig. (Weale), 160. Wood-lock, a piece of elm … in the throating or score of the pintle.
1898. Speaker, 26 Feb., 264/1. Masses of greyish white—almost like a faint throating of snow.
c. Shipbuilding. The throat of a floor-timber.
1869. Sir E. J. Reed, Shipbuilding, ii. 28. Keep its upper edge level with the throating of the floors.
d. attrib.: throating-knife, a knife used for cutting the throats of fish; throating-line = cutting-down line (CUTTING vbl. sb. 9 b); throating-machine, a machine for shaping the throats of wheel spokes (Cent. Dict., Suppl., 1909)
1883. Fisheries Exhib. Catal., 197. Cod splitting, ripping and throating knives.
