The prepositional use of pendant very often retains some of the word's verbal quality (in an ablative absolute construction): for example, pendantz les delaiez can be translated both as 'during the delays' and 'with the delays pending'. As for pendant used as an adjective, particularly when used predicatively, or, even more so, as a gerund (in the French grammatical sense), an interpretation as a straightforward present participle in a verbal construction is also justifiable. While other dictionaries (DMF, TLF, OED and MED) have chosen to separate the different grammatical categories (adjective, substantive and preposition) into different entries, they are treated here as one article, all derived from the present participle of pendre¹, but with varying degrees of independence from the verbal use.

It should be noted that the English pending prep and a.1 and pending a.2, though clearly modelled on the Anglo-Norman word, only appear in the seventeenth- and eighteenth centuries, respectively.