printing

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. The art, process, or business of producing printed material by means of inked type and a printing press or by similar means.
2. n. The act of one that prints.
3. n. Matter that is printed.
4. n. All the copies of a publication, such as a book, that are printed at one time.
5. n. Written characters not connected to one another and resembling those appearing in print.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. In general, the art or process of making copies or superficial transfers by impression; the reproduction of designs, characters, etc., on an impressible surface by means of an ink or a pigment (generally oily) applied to the solid surface on which they are engraved or otherwise formed. This sense is used specifically in typography of the actual taking of impressions by the operation of a press; in other uses, it is generally accompanied by some descriptive term; and in typography itself different methods are discriminated, as type, letterpress, or stereotype printing, color-printing, etc. Type or stereotype printing is done from a surface in high relief; lithographic printing, from the surface of a flat stone; copperplate printing, from inked lines engraved below the surface of a flat plate of copper or steel. The art of printing with ink from blocks of wood was practised in China at an early undetermined date. Silk and linen fabrics were printed from engraved hand-stamps in Europe in the twelfth century; playing-cards and prints of images were impressed on paper in the beginning of the fourteenth century. Calico-printing, oilcloth-printing, and carpet-printing are also distinct arts, each requiring specially made inks and machinery. Printing for the blind, in letters embossed in relief, is the only form of printing done without ink.
2. n. The art or process of producing printed matter for reading (including illustrations, etc.) by composition and imposition of types, and their subjection when inked to pressure upon paper in a printing-press; the typographic art; typography in the fullest sense. Although documents of a much earlier date exist, which show strong evidence of having been printed in some manner analogous to the modern practice, the history of printing properly begins with the first use of movable molded types, and is accredited to Gutenberg, with the aid of Schoeffer and Fust, of Mainz in Germany, in which city appeared the first book with an authenticated (written) date, 1456. Gutenberg's invention, however, is disputed in favor of his contemporary Coster, of Haarlem in Holland, from whom the former is said to have derived the process. Improvements have since been made in the speed of type-making and in the methods of type-setting, but there has been no radical change in their theory or process. The simple screw hand-press first used for printing from types received no considerable improvement before 1800. Since that date many inventions have been made in printing-machinery, and the collateral arts of stereotyping and electrotyping have been developed. Machines that print from 5,000 to 50,000 copies an hour are to be found in many large cities. The earliest Italian copperplate-print is by Maso Finiguerra, a goldsmith of Florence (1452). Lithography was invented by Aloys Senefelder, of Munich, about 1796; he made prints in 1798, and received a patent in 1800. Typography, also known as letterpress printing, obtains its greatest advantage from the mobility of its types of metal, which can be repeatedly used in endless combinations. Type-printing machinery permits the use, along with types, of engravings on wood, or of stereotype or electrotype plates. In all other kinds of printing, the use of an engraved design in a new combination is not practicable; it can be used only in its first state. Printing comprises two distinct trades—composition, or the art of arranging types, and presswork, or the art of getting impressions from composed types. See compositor, pressman, and printer, 2.
3. n. In photography, the act or art of obtaining a positive photographic picture from a negative, or a picture in which the lights and shades are true to nature from one in which they are reversed. When based upon the properties of a salt of silver, such printing is called silver-printing, and similarly with other salts.
4. n. In ceramics, the art of decorating pottery by means of transfers, either by paper printed with mineral colors or by sheets of gelatin printed in oil. By the first plan, the paper is pressed, printed side down, on the ware to make the transfer, and afterward removed by softening in water. By the other plan, the gelatin film or bat simply transfers the oil to the ware, when it can be removed and used again, the oil-print being then dusted with mineral colors.
5. n. Advertising-bills, posters, dodgers, window-bills, and the like.

Wiktionary

1. n. uncountable The process or business of producing printed material by means of inked type and a printing press or similar technology.
2. n. uncountable Material that has been printed.
3. n. countable All the copies of a publication that have been printed in one batch.
4. n. uncountable Written characters that are not joined up.
5. v. present participle of print.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. The act, art, or practice of impressing letters, characters, or figures on paper, cloth, or other material; the business of a printer, including typesetting and presswork, with their adjuncts; typography; also, the act of producing photographic prints.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. reproduction by applying ink to paper as for publication
2. n. all the copies of a work printed at one time
3. n. the business of producing printed material for sale or distribution
4. n. text handwritten in the style of printed matter