padding

noun

Pronunciation: /ˈpædɪŋ/

Etymology: Etymology tree English pad Proto-Germanic *-ungō Old English -ung Middle English -ynge English -ing English padding From pad + -ing.

Soft filling material used in cushions etc.
Extra characters such as spaces added to a record to fill it out to a fixed length.
Extraneous text added to a message for the purpose of concealing its beginning, ending, or length.
Anything of little value used to fill up space.
“That magazine is mostly advertisements; the rest is padding.”
“But to my intense surprise, on getting down early the next morning, and eagerly opening the newspapers, there was not a word about the arrest! There was a column of mere padding about “The Styles Poisoning Case,” but nothing further. It was rather inexplicable, but I supposed that, for some reason or other, Japp wished to keep it out of the papers.”
The process of mordanting a fabric.
A diaper.
Robbing on a highway.

Etymology: See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.