Ongoing means still going on and not yet finished. An ongoing investigation, ongoing problems, ongoing costs.
It goes before the noun and is very heavily used in official language: an ongoing investigation is the standard reason for saying nothing. Ongoing costs means the ones that continue after the initial spend, which is where most budgets fail. Note that ongoing is disliked by some editors as a filler — an investigation is by definition continuing — and that it usually can be cut without loss.
1adjectiveongoingStill going on and not yet finished.
“The police investigation is ongoing, so we can't comment.”
synonyms: continuing, current
ongoing is a state of continuing.
The word is on plus going, a twentieth-century compound built on the model of oncoming and outgoing. It is a recent formation and has been complained about for most of its life.
From on + going, related to the phrasal verb go on.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA