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  1. scumble love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. v. To soften the colors or outlines of (a painting or drawing) by covering with a film of opaque or semiopaque color or by rubbing.
  2. v. To blur the outlines of: a writer who scumbled the line that divides history and fiction.
  3. n. The effect produced by or as if by scumbling.
  4. n. Material used for scumbling.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. In oil-painting, to blend the tints or soften the effect of, by lightly passing a brush charged with a small quantity of an opaque or semiopaque coloring over the surface; in chalk - or pencil-drawing, to rub lightly the blunt point of the chalk over the surface of, or to spread and soften the harder lines of with the stump: as, to scumble a painting or a drawing.
  2. n. A softened effect produced by scumbling. See scumbling.

Wiktionary

  1. n. An opaque kind of glaze (layer of paint).
  2. v. to apply an opaque glaze to an area of a painting to make it softer or duller

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. v. (Fine Arts) To cover lighty, as a painting, or a drawing, with a thin wash of opaque color, or with color-crayon dust rubbed on with the stump, or to make any similar additions to the work, so as to produce a softened effect.

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. the application of very thin coat of color over the surface of a picture

Etymologies

  1. Uncertain origin, perhaps from scum. (Wiktionary)
  2. Possibly from scum. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

  • “Where conditions were right (neither too much nor too little sun, for instance up near the house itself) a scumble of colors occurred in Spring, attracting swarms of bees and butterflies — among these: Silver-spotted Skippers (Epargyreus clarus clarus) and American Coppers (Lycaena phlaes americana) — in abundance.”

    Fictionaut: The light that draws the flower

  • “If it's a transparentized scumble or glaze layer, it sure has lost a lot of opacity.”

    Daybreak Blues

  • “Could one use the wax as a glaze then scumble oil paint over it?”

    Dead Tech: Waxers

  • “From 18 inches away the scumble looks so painterly as to feel too sloppy... from 10 feet away, the effect is astonishingly lifelike, present.”

    Scumbling

  • “When I did comics I was always fighting the detail issue; when to scumble in a background, when to draw it out in detail, and when to just leave it out entirely...”

    Theory of Sacrifices

  • “Where the form turns more to the light in the brightly illuminated halftones, you can scumble a light tone overall, saving your strongest touches of pure white for the highlights and accents.”

    Archive 2008-10-01

  • “Merriam-Webster defines “scumble” as partly “to make as color or a painting less brilliant by covering with a thin coat of opaque or semiopaque color.””

    Archive 2007-05-01

  • “She chose “The Last Lunar Baedekar” by Mina Loy, to scumble and work over to create her own startling and original poems.”

    Archive 2007-09-01

  • “I should advise you to let it dry, and then scumble a middle tone right over the whole thing, as you did at first, which will show the old work through, and you can then correct your drawing and proceed to paint the lights and shadows as before.”

    The Practice and Science of Drawing

  • “Now scumble this with a big brush equally over the whole canvas (or whatever you are making your study on).”

    The Practice and Science of Drawing

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hypernyms (3)

Words that are more generic or abstract

  1. coating
  1. application
  1. covering

reverse dictionary (1)

Words that contain this word in their definition

  1. scumble

tags (2)

Free-form, user-generated categorization

  1. art
  1. ppwp_soundintelligent

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Lists

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Comments

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  • mollusque My forehead, with its three horizontal wrinkles that had not really overasserted themselves in the last three decades, remained round, ample and smooth, waiting for the summer tan that would scumble, I knew, the liver spots on my temples.
    --Vladimir Nabokov, 1974, Look at the Harlequins! p. 227 Jun 13, 2009

  • travismcdermott 1798 Trans. Soc. Arts XVI. 280 The artist then painted the lights with pure white..where the light was brightest..; and, where the demi-tints were afterwards to be, scumbling it thinner by degrees. Jul 13, 2008

  • trivet Come to think of it, most -umble words are fun to say. I smell a list. Aug 1, 2007

  • reesetee It is, isn't it? I picked up this word from the title of a book I read long ago: Scumbler by William Wharton. I don't remember many details from the novel, but I do remember this word. :-) Aug 1, 2007

  • trivet lovely! such a scribbly, mumbly jumble of a word... Aug 1, 2007

  • reesetee Great word. From American Heritage: To soften the colors or outlines of a painting or drawing by covering with a film of opaque or semi-opaque color or by rubbing. In more general terms, to blur the outlines of, as a writer who scumbles the line between history and fiction. Aug 1, 2007

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‘scumble’ has been looked up 1813 times, loved by 2 people, added to 24 lists, commented on 6 times, and has a Scrabble score of 13.