Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The operation of filling the seams of vessels with oakum, to prevent penetration of water. The oakum is forced below the surface, and the space outside of it is filled with melted pitch.
  • noun In carpentry, a dovetail tenon-and-mortise joint by which cross-timbers are secured together, much used for fixing the tie-beams of a roof, or the binding-joists of a floor, down to the wall-plates.
  • noun The copying of a picture or design by means of tracing.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The act or process of making seems tight, as in ships, or of furnishing with calks, as a shoe, or copying, as a drawing.
  • noun a tool like a chisel, used in calking ships, tightening seams in ironwork, etc.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb Present participle of calk.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • There was that matter of the deck-calking, the bronze rudder-irons, the overhauling of the engine, the new spinnaker boom, the new davits, and the repairs to the whale-boat.

    Bunches of Knuckles 2010

  • They're like leaky boats -- calking, patching, pumping, night and day and all the time.

    CHAPTER XI 2010

  • Twenty feet away a weary-faced sailor was calking the deck.

    THE SEED OF McCOY 2010

  • The carpenter was engaged constantly in attempting to locate such places, and, when he succeeded, in calking them tighter and tighter.

    THE SEED OF McCOY 2010

  • Men worked frantically, early and late, at the height of their endurance, calking, nailing, and pitching in a frenzy of haste for which adequate explanation was not far to seek.

    THE ONE THOUSAND DOZEN 2010

  • Use a calking gun to fill up holes in your home to keep cockroaches from coming in, and keep moisture to a minimum.

    CNN Transcript Mar 10, 2007 2007

  • For calking the seams they made oakum of dry seaweed, which was hammered in between the planks; then these seams were covered with boiling tar, which was obtained in great abundance from the pines in the forest.

    The Mysterious Island 2005

  • And these few days it was necessary to employ in planking and carefully calking the vessel, and launching her.

    The Mysterious Island 2005

  • For calking the seams they made oakum of dry seaweed, which was hammered in between the planks; then these seams were covered with boiling tar, which was obtained in great abundance from the pines in the forest.

    The Mysterious Island 2005

  • And these few days it was necessary to employ in planking and carefully calking the vessel, and launching her.

    The Mysterious Island 2005

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