Meaning of homing in English:

homing

Pronunciation /ˈhəʊmɪŋ/

Translate homing into Spanish

adjective

1Relating to an animal's ability to return to its territory after travelling away from it.
‘a strong homing instinct’
- ‘Their homing abilities could also provide scientists with new clues to the long-debated role of the Earth's magnetic fields in animal movements and migrations.’
- ‘The relocation operation relies on the birds' excellent natural homing instinct, which compels them to return to the site where they hatched.’
- ‘To see whether they have a homing ability, Boles caught more than 100 lobsters in different locations and transported them for about an hour in various deceptive ways to a test site.’
- ‘The Manx shearwater has a phenomenal homing ability.’
- ‘‘We can't tell at this stage which of these two types of homing behavior the sea snakes are displaying,’ said Reed.’
- ‘Male black bears have remarkable homing instincts as well and have traveled great distances, some up to 400 miles, to return to their homestead.’
- ‘This homing behavior has been documented in other parts of the globe.’
- ‘In one astounding example of determination and homing instinct, a leopard translocated from its range in South Africa walked 540 km home, the distance between Chennai and Hyderabad.’
- ‘Over generations of grazing on the same land the flock has developed a homing instinct, which means that they do not stray from their pastures.’
- ‘It should now be clear that trying to settle this flock elsewhere is almost impossible bearing in mind their strong homing instincts.’
- ‘Take the homing instinct: how do the pigeons do it?’
- ‘The sport of pigeon racing is built around a central mystery: the strange homing instinct of the pigeon.’
- ‘Homing behavior is known to occur in other reptiles, such as crocodiles and sea turtles.’
1. 1.1(of a pigeon) trained to fly home from a great distance and bred for long-distance racing.
  ‘I thought the bird should make its own way home being a homing pigeon, but I was quite happy to give it a lift.’
  ‘On one of his trips, Amundsen took a homing pigeon with him.’
  ‘The romantic image of the homing pigeon using mysterious forces to navigate its way hundreds of miles back to its perch appears to be no such thing.’
  ‘One worker at the same site stole diamonds by tying a small bag to a homing pigeon, which would fly the diamonds back to his house.’
  ‘A flock of homing pigeons soared into the azure sky, dispersing before the gates of the city, each striking towards its own destination.’
  ‘A homing pigeon has turned up at a South African diamond mine after being blown off course while flying to England from France, its owner said yesterday.’
  ‘Deep furrows creased his handsome face as he attached the vital message to the homing pigeon's leg.’
  ‘So instead of going to Fort Jesus I went back to the carpets and antique shop like a homing pigeon on its way home.’
  ‘A homing pigeon with a small bar magnet attached to the back of its head takes much longer to fly home!’
  ‘The precise navigation of birds has been studied most extensively in migratory songbirds and the homing pigeon.’
  ‘Researchers say their study proves for the first time that homing pigeons can sense Earth's magnetic field.’
  ‘There is general agreement that homing pigeons use the sun as a compass reference.’
  ‘This makes a great deal of sense if we consider the evolutionary origin of homing pigeons.’
  ‘Fortunately I have the innate navigation abilities of a homing pigeon, so I headed west towards central London.’
  ‘Trained homing pigeons can find their way over distances as far as 600 miles.’
  ‘To send our secret reports back to Finland, we'd use homing pigeons.’
  ‘Cell phones have been implicated in the disappearance of more than 2,000 homing pigeons during two races in Virginia and Pennsylvania.’
  ‘He uses homing pigeons to carry messages back home.’
  ‘Zoologists at Oxford have come up with a new theory to explain how homing pigeons navigate.’
  ‘Like homing pigeons, some types of amphibious snakes have an unstoppable urge to return home.’
2. 1.2(of a weapon or piece of equipment) fitted with an electronic device that enables it to find and hit a target.
  ‘a homing missile’
  ‘He didn't look to the left, he didn't look to the right, he came straight in the door and ran straight down to my brother like a homing missile.’
  ‘It is an optically-sighted weapon, but also contains a heat-seeking homing device.’
  ‘The Lynx adds considerably to the destroyer's firepower - it can fly at 180 knots, and has its own Sea Skua anti-ship missiles and homing torpedoes.’
  ‘These act like James Bond-esque homing devices and, through the use of either satellite and/or land-based radio technology, can pinpoint your vehicle if it is stolen.’
  ‘Jessie looked up from the remains of the homing device.’
  ‘His truck had a homing device hidden under the front left wheel, and even the phones at work were tapped.’
  ‘Carbon dioxide acts like a homing device, guiding pesky mosquitoes to their dinner.’
  ‘However, the German response was to develop the first homing torpedoes.’
  ‘New types of torpedoes were hurried into production, the most important being the Mark 18 electric and the homing types.’
  ‘One principal area in the development of weapon systems is the creation of precision weapon systems using guided and homing missiles, rockets, projectiles, bombs, and other weaponry.’
  ‘Mines can be sown in deep water, and are propelled at high speed towards a target, like a miniature homing torpedo.’
  ‘It is armed with one homing torpedo, one torpedo rocket and twelve bombs.’
  ‘The teams marked drop zones and set up radar homing devices to guide aircraft to there targets.’
  ‘Further employment of the infra-red spectrum may be found in aerial combat with the infra-red homing missile.’
  ‘This means the shell is going to combine the qualities of a controlled and homing weapon.’
  ‘The arsenal of weapons include homing plasma guns, rockets, proximity grenades, Gattling guns and much more.’
  ‘Bomb varieties can be anything from a simple mortar to homing missiles that purposely land on either side of your enemy (in case he attempts to dodge).’
  ‘This aspect is more than a gimmicky distraction, as his tinkerings transform a fairly standard rocket launcher into a potent homing weapon that can track and fire upon four targets simultaneously.’
  ‘It is also used with homing weapons and guided bombs.’
  ‘Often, in the mid-Atlantic, after forcing U-boats to crash-dive, carrier planes dropped homing torpedoes on the submarines.’