The act of becoming stuck in a situation where no progress can be made, or causing such a situation.
From 'deadlock' (complete standstill) plus '-ing' (present participle/gerund suffix). The gerund form allows the concept of deadlock to function as an action or process rather than just a state.
In computer science, 'deadlocking' is a specific technical problem where programs get stuck waiting for each other infinitely—programmers fight this constantly, and the term shows how maritime and mechanical language evolves into cutting-edge tech vocabulary.
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