Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The process of transferring pictures or designs printed on specially prepared paper to materials such as glass or metal.
  • noun A decal.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The practice or process of transferring pictures to marble, porcelain, glass, wood, and the like.

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

  • noun The art or process of transferring pictures and designs to china, glass, marble, etc., and permanently fixing them thereto.

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

  • noun The process of transferring decorative designs onto surfaces using decals

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun either a design that is fixed to some surface or a paper bearing the design which is to be transferred to the surface
  • noun the art of transfering designs from specially prepared paper to a wood or glass or metal surface

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French décalcomanie, from dēcalquer, to transfer a tracing (de-, off, from from Latin dē-; see de– + calquer, to trace; see calque) + manie, craze (from its popularity in the 19th century) (from Late Latin mania, madness; see mania).]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From French décalcomanie

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word decalcomania.

Examples

  • The bank clerk did not go and collect the decalcomania from the car but with a sour look on his face asked Jerezano for his passport, compared that passport line by line with the first Xerox copy, then with the second copy.

    Tramites: Mexican Paperwork----ouch! 2007

  • The bank clerk did not go and collect the decalcomania from the car but with a sour look on his face asked Jerezano for his passport, compared that passport line by line with the first Xerox copy, then with the second copy.

    Tramites: Mexican Paperwork----ouch! 2007

  • Ironically, the face itself belongs to a Swiss artist who creates distinctive, hyper-colored, collage-like abstract paintings through techniques such as decalcomania and grattage.

    Stories from The Sun Will Cordeiro 2010

  • The figure from Dalí's "City of Drawers" was used on the cover of The Atrocity Exhibition in 1970 but for me the matching of Ernst's decalcomania masterpiece "The Eye of Silence" is far more successful.

    MIND MELD: The Most Memorable SF/F Book Covers 2009

  • There he was met by Roque's replacement (Roque had gone to lunch) who slapped the Legalization decalcomania on the windshield, then the

    Tramites: Mexican Paperwork----ouch! 2007

  • Tenencias decalcomania below that, and handed Jerezano his plates and documentation with a cheery

    Tramites: Mexican Paperwork----ouch! 2007

  • Then she told Jerezano where on his windshield to put the decalcomania, wished him a good day and thanked him for coming to Mexico.

    Tramites: Mexican Paperwork----ouch! 2007

  • Then she told Jerezano where on his windshield to put the decalcomania, wished him a good day and thanked him for coming to Mexico.

    Tramites: Mexican Paperwork----ouch! 2007

  • On the 4th, he removed the Texas plates from the car, installed the Zacatecas plates, scraped the controversial import decalcomania from the windshield and threw it away.

    Tramites: Mexican Paperwork----ouch! 2007

  • The silver seal in the center was the windshield decalcomania.

    Tramites: Mexican Paperwork----ouch! 2007

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.