fresco

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. The art of painting on fresh, moist plaster with pigments dissolved in water.
2. n. A painting executed in this way.
3. v. To paint in fresco.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. Coolness; a cool, refreshing state of the air; shade. See al fresco.
2. n. A method of painting on walls covered with a ground or coat of plaster or mortar, with which the colors become permanently incorporated if properly chosen and applied; also, a picture or design so painted. True fresco (Italian buon fresco) is painting in colors mixed with water or hydrate of lime upon a wet surface of mortar made of lime and pure quartz-sand. In this method earth pigments are chiefly used, because all vegetable and many mineral pigments are decomposed by lime or altered by light. The solidity of the painting depends upon the penetration of the colors into the plaster or mortar, and upon the crystalline layer which forms upon its surface before the mortar has set, as it does in a few hours through the absorption of carbonic acid from the atmosphere. If this crystalline layer is disturbed, or if it has begun to form while the artist is painting, or if it forms between the thinner and thicker coats of color successively applied, the colors will flake and fall away. Dry fresco (Italian fresco secco) is a method of fresco-painting upon a dry surface. The last coat of plaster, or intonaco, when perfectly dry, is rubbed with pumice-stone, and well wetted with water and a little lime the evening before painting, and again immediately before the artist begins work. The first step in this process is to pounce the outline of the design upon the wall. The phrase fresco secco is applied also to retouching in distemper. The implements used by fresco-painters include wooden and glass floats, trowels of wood and iron, palette-knives of steel and bone, a trimming-knife, a bone or ivory stylus, and brushes of hog-bristles and other hair, of such quality as to be neither curled nor burned by lime. Compare distemper.
3. To paint in fresco, as a wall.

Wiktionary

1. n. uncountable In painting, the technique of applying water-based pigment to wet or fresh lime mortar or plaster.
2. n. countable A painting made using this technique.
3. v. To paint using fresco

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. rare A cool, refreshing state of the air; duskiness; coolness; shade.
2. n. The art of painting on freshly spread plaster, before it dries.
3. n. In modern parlance, incorrectly applied to painting on plaster in any manner.
4. n. A painting on plaster in either of senses a and b.
5. v. To paint in fresco, as walls.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a mural done with watercolors on wet plaster
2. v. paint onto wet plaster on a wall
3. n. a durable method of painting on a wall by using watercolors on wet plaster