tanning vs licking

tanning and licking both are nouns.

Word	Noun	Adjective	Verb	Adverb
tanning	Yes	No	No	No
licking	Yes	No	No	No

As nouns, licking is a hypernym of tanning; that is, licking is a word with a broader meaning than tanning:

Other hypernyms of tanning include beating, drubbing, lacing, thrashing, trouncing, whacking.

tanning (noun)	licking (noun)
making leather from rawhide	the act of inflicting corporal punishment with repeated blows
beating with a whip or strap or rope as a form of punishment	an unsuccessful ending to a struggle or contest
process in which skin pigmentation darkens as a result of exposure to ultraviolet light