The act or process of making gentle; the training and taming of wild animals to be docile and manageable.
From the verb 'gentle' with the gerund/participle suffix '-ing' (Old English -ung). The '-ing' form allows the action itself to be discussed as a noun, commonly used in animal husbandry and training contexts.
Horse trainers and animal handlers still use 'gentling' as a technical term, and it's one of the few words that preserves the ancient craft knowledge of working with wild animals—a living link to how humans learned to live alongside other species.
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