ETCHING • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Etching

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/ˈɛtʃɪŋ/ Listen

noun

Etching n.

The act, art, or practice of engraving by means of acid which eats away lines or surfaces left unprotected in metal, glass, or the like. See Etch, v. t.

A design carried out by means of the above process; a pattern on metal, glass, etc., produced by etching.

An impression on paper, parchment, or other material, taken in ink from an etched plate.

Etching figures (Min.), markings produced on the face of a crystal by the action of an appropriate solvent. They have usually a definite form, and are important as revealing the molecular structure.

Etching needle, a sharp-pointed steel instrument with which lines are drawn in the ground or varnish in etching.

Etching stitch (Needlework), a stitch used outline embroidery.

verb

Etch v. t. (past & past part. etched; pres. part. etching)

To produce, as figures or designs, on mental, glass, or the like, by means of lines or strokes eaten in or corroded by means of some strong acid. Note: The plate is first covered with varnish, or some other ground capable of resisting the acid, and this is then scored or scratched with a needle, or similar instrument, so as to form the drawing; the plate is then covered with acid, which corrodes the metal in the lines thus laid bare.

To subject to etching; to draw upon and bite with acid, as a plate of metal. "I was etching a plate at the beginning of 1875."

To sketch; to delineate. (R.) "There are many empty terms to be found in some learned writes, to which they had recourse to etch out their system."

Etch v. i. To practice etching; to make etchings.

See images of 'Etching'

Etymology of 'Etching'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Etching" Quotes from Famous Books

... who remains dim throughout is the artist, Franklin Booth, Dreiser's host and companion on the long motor ride from New York to Indiana, and the maker of the book's excellent pictures. One gets a brilliant etching of Booth's father, and scarcely less vivid portraits of Speed, the chauffeur; of various persons encountered on the way, and of friends and relatives dredged up out of the abyss of the past. But of Booth one learns little save that he is ...

— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken

... gaudy calendars to better things, when prosperity comes. But now these crude things speak for the pioneer period of the man, and therefore they are the right things for the moment. How absurd would be the refined etching and the delicate water-color on these clay walls, even were ...

— The House in Good Taste • Elsie de Wolfe

... There is an etching by Salvator Rosa, which seems so plainly to tell the story of the wandering artist's captivity, that it merits a particular description. In the midst of wild, rocky scenery, appears a group of banditti, armed at all points, and with all sorts of arms; they are lying in careless attitudes, ...

— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner

... and panegyrics, seems dim indeed and visionary, when compared with some sharply indented description by a brilliant literary craftsman. It has the vagueness of a photograph produced by superimposing many negatives of the same face one upon the other. It lacks the pungent piquancy of an etching. Yet this is what we must abide by; for this is spiritually and ...

— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds

... model?' shouted Trevor at the top of his voice; 'I should think so! Such beggars as he are not to be met with every day. A trouvaille, mon cher; a living Velasquez! My stars! what an etching Rembrandt would have ...

— Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories • Oscar Wilde

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