Students sometimes distinguish between "light petting" and "heavy petting," meaning, by the former term, the milder and more restricted forms of endearment, and by the latter the more intimate, unrestricted and agitating kinds of physical-emotional relations.
etymology - How did the words "petting" and "necking" come to mean ...
What you are describing is "petting." Although, petting is usually done to animals. It may be insulting in some cultures to do it to people. Some asian cultures might find it disrespectful as this article explains. According to Merriam-Webster, definition 1 (b) of the verb "pet" is "to stroke in a gentle or loving manner."
The word "pet" has a few different definitions (my own paraphrase): n: An animal kept for companionship. v: To affectionately caress. My question is, which of these usages originated first? Do we refer to companion animals as "pets" because we pet them? Or is the act of "petting" so dubbed because it is what we do to pets?
I had always assumed that "back biting" referred to when, say, a dog who was being petted twisted around and bit the hand doing the petting.
It took me a while to realise that in that context, blow-jobs are usually seen as "normal, heavy petting", whereas penetrative sex is usually classed as "whoring" regardless of whether anyone actually paid for it.
Not ‘I want to pet a dog’ (‘wanting’ is not ‘having’) but ‘wow! I looove this feeling of petting a dog! It is the feeeeling that makes it happen. You must feel it. Emotionallly. Because feeling is the language that the Universe understands. Example. I awoke one morning, thought with enthusiasm ‘it would be great to have a pink ...
COCA has several examples of "a stables": e.g.: "Their dates were simple: walks in the park, petting horses at a stables near her Silver Spring apartment, takeout Thai dinners and occasional splurges on extravagant chocolate desserts at the Willard Hotel". While Merriam Webster only lists the noun stable, it has examples which use singular stables, for example: "For drinks, simply wander back ...