Freezing means cold enough to turn water to ice. Freezing temperatures, below freezing, it is freezing in here.
As a noun, freezing is the temperature at which water turns to ice — zero degrees Celsius, thirty-two Fahrenheit — and below freezing is the standard forecast phrase. In ordinary speech it simply means very cold, with no measurement implied at all: it is freezing in here usually means about eighteen degrees. Note freezing point, freezing fog, and that freezing rain is the dangerous kind that turns to ice on contact.
1adjectivefreezingCold enough to turn water to ice.
“Temperatures fell below freezing last night, and the roads are icy.”
2adjectivecoldVery cold.
“It is freezing in that room whatever the heating does.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
freezing is a degree of cold.
Middle English
fresen
English
freeze
English, today
freezing
by surface analysis, freeze + -ing. freeze comes from Middle English fresen. From Middle English fresen, from Old English frēosan (“to freeze”), from Proto-West Germanic freusan, from Proto-Germanic freusaną (“to freeze”), from Proto-Indo-European prews- (“to freeze; frost”). 2
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA