Etching definitions and example sentences on Wordnik

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noun The art of preparing etched plates, especially metal plates, from which designs and pictures are printed.
noun A design etched on a plate.
noun An impression made from an etched plate.

Century Dictionary (11)

A process of engraving in which the lines are produced by the action of an acid or mordant instead of by a burin. A plate (usually of copper, but sometimes of glass, stone, etc., according to the use to which it is to be put, or the effect sought to be produced) is covered with a ground made of asphaltum, wax, and pitch, which is evenly blackened with the smoke of wax tapers. (See etching-ground.) On this ground the design is drawn with a steel point or needle, as with a pencil on paper (care being taken not to cut the metal), the point leaving the metal exposed where it passes. The plate is then submerged in a bath of dilute acid, which bites in those parts of the surface exposed by the drawn lines, while the remainder of the surface is protected from its action by the wax coating. Furrows are thus formed which, when the plate has been cleaned and charged with ink, will, if impressed upon a piece of moist paper, print an impression of the design. When blackened, the plate may be plunged into cold water to give its surface a polish. For copperplates to be used in printing, the mordant commonly used is nitric acid, but in its place some modern etchers employ a so-called “Dutch mordant,” made of muriatic acid and chlorate of potash. When the fainter lines of the design appear to be sufficiently bitten in, the plate is taken from the bath and, after being carefully washed in cold water these lines are stopped out with a paint-brush charged with a varnish made of asphaltum and turpentine, so that they will be protected from the acid when the plate is replaced in it. This process is repeated from time to time until the strongest lines in the design have been sufficiently bitten in, after which the remaining ground is washed off with spirits of turpentine, and the plate is ready to be inked. Artists who etch from nature while the plate is in the acid bath proceed inversely—that is, they begin by biting in the stronger lines, and end with the fainter; but in either case, whether the latter are stopped out or last put in, they are subjected to a smaller degree of acid action. If the first impressions are imperfect, the plate can be retouched with the dry-point, or rebitten after a fresh ground has been laid on with a roller. The tools used in etching comprise needles, gravers or burins of different shapes, scrapers, burnishers, oil-rubbers, dabbers, camel's-hair brushes, etc. A surface of porcelain may be etched and bitten, and the sunken lines then filled with a metallic pigment which on refiring can be burned into the ware and covered with glaze. Some plates were sent abroad about the year 1530, eaten with aqua fortis after Parmesano; and etching with corrosive waters began by some to be attempted with laudable success. Evelyn, Sculpture.
An impression taken from an etched plate.
A line etched, or appearing as if etched. [Rare.] Never is my imagination so busy as in framing his responses from the etchings of his countenance. Sterne, Tristram Shandy, vii. 32.

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Her face was as perfect as an etching, as a carved cameo. — 043 - Cold Death
Before Edwin Landseer was eight years of age his father had taught him the process of etching, and we see that even then the lad had a vivid insight into the character of animals. — Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters
Learn how to uncover fossils through acid etching, and prepare and identify them after they've been uncovered. — Omni: Fall 1995
He was early tempted to try etching, and of course received encouragement and help; the first attempt was a success, as far as it went, and Mr. S. Palmer wrote about it Your son's etching has given pleasure to other than 'parental eyes.' — Philip Gilbert Hamerton
These artists uncover something of the picturesque in the foreign colonies, which they have reproduced in painting, etching, and lithography. — 20 Years At Hull House

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