shipping

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun The act or business of transporting goods.
• noun The body of ships belonging to one port, industry, or country, often referred to in aggregate tonnage.
• noun Passage or transport on a ship.

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun The act of taking ship; a voyage.
• noun The act of sending freight by ship or other wise.
• noun Ships in general; ships or vessels of any kind for navigation; the collective body of ships belonging to a country, port, etc.; also, their aggregate tonnage: as, the shipping of the United Kingdom exceeds that of any other country: also used attributively: as, shipping laws.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• adjective Relating to ships, their ownership, transfer, or employment.
• adjective Relating to, or concerned in, the forwarding of goods.
• noun The act of one who, or of that which, ships.
• noun The collective body of ships in one place, or belonging to one port, country, etc.; vessels, generally; tonnage.
• noun Navigation.
• noun articles of agreement between the captain of a vessel and the seamen on board, in respect to the amount of wages, length of time for which they are shipping, etc.
• noun [Obs.] to embark; to take ship.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun The transportation of goods.
• noun The body of ships belonging to one nation, port or industry.
• noun Passage or transport on a ship.
• noun The cost of sending an item or package via postal services.
• verb Present participle of ship.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun conveyance provided by the ships belonging to one country or industry
• noun the commercial enterprise of moving goods and materials