texting

noun

text·​ing ˈtek-stiŋ 

: the act or activity of sending text messages from one cell phone to another

When I moved to Chicago, I used a paper map that folded in your lap to navigate the city. There was no Internet, no e-mail, no texting … . A few people in the late eighties had giant cell phones that lived in tiny suitcases, and I saw some in movies.

—Amy Poehler

Texting freed a generation from the strictures and inconvenience (and awkwardness) of phone calls, while allowing people to be more loosely and constantly connected.

—Jenna Wortham

Examples of texting in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Options for calling, texting, and video calls are all readily available. —John Brandon, PCMAG, 1 Feb. 2025

The app emphasizes quality connections over endless texting, offering a seamless platform for users to meet in person and engage in meaningful relationships. —Katcy Stephan, Variety, 27 Jan. 2025

Whereas women tend to prefer to maintain friendships distantly through communication methods like texting or phone calls and try to limit in person gatherings. —Gordon G. Chang, Newsweek, 24 Jan. 2025

And while initially the exposure of RCS was just about Android to iPhone texting, where Apple’s decision to adopt the standard RC S protocol meant no end-to-end encryption between Google Messages to iMessage, that soon became worse. —Zak Doffman, Forbes, 14 Dec. 2024

Word History

First Known Use

1999, in the meaning defined above