The action of coating or smearing something thickly with a messy substance.
Present participle of 'bedaub,' formed by adding the '-ing' suffix to show ongoing action. This gerund form allows the verb to function as a noun or to show continuous action.
The '-ing' form is the workhorse of English—it lets you freeze an action in progress and use it in new ways, like 'the bedaubing of the canvas' becomes a noun, turning a verb into a thing you can think about separately.
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