reading
read·ing / ˈrēding/ • n. 1. the action or skill of reading written or printed matter silently or aloud: suggestions for further reading | [as adj.] reading skills | a cursory reading of the minutes. ∎ written or printed matter that can be read: his main reading was detective stories. ∎ used to convey the specified quality of such written or printed matter: his file certainly makes interesting reading. ∎ knowledge of literature: a man of wide reading. ∎ the formal reading aloud of a legal document to an audience: the reading of a will. ∎ an occasion at which poetry or other pieces of literature are read aloud to an audience. ∎ a piece of literature or passage of scripture read aloud to a group of people: readings from the Bible. 2. an interpretation: feminist readings of Goethe | his reading of the situation was justified. ∎ a form in which a given passage appears in a particular edition of a text. 3. a figure or amount shown by a meter or other measuring instrument: radiation readings were taken every hour. 4. a stage of debate in a parliament through which a bill must pass before it can become law: the bill returns to the House for its final reading next week.